


when the lights fade out, all the sinners crawl

by writtenndust



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Not Suitable/Safe For Work, Warnings May Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writtenndust/pseuds/writtenndust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Setting out on the Jolly Roger in search of Henry, they're faced with the brand new dangers that lurk in Neverland. From the writhing alleyways of Tortuga to the Queen Anne's Revenge, the team must work together to save Henry from the shadow and the mysterious Peter Pan. Along the way Regina finds a way to open up and let someone in, taking comfort in the one person who doesn't judge her for the cruelties of her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set immediately after 2x21 'and straight on till morning' - setting out from journey out of Storybrooke and carrying on into Neverland.

With her eyes set squarely on the shore ahead, Regina twitched in her seat, tugging the thick fur hide around her shoulders tighter. A cool breeze had set in, ruffling her hair and raising a pink to her cheeks. She sniffled, unsure if it was from the chill or the silent tears trickling down her face.

They’d taken Henry. And all she could do was watch from the deck of the Jolly Roger as the moonlight reflected off gentle waves and the sun fought valiantly against her iron will, refusing to rise. Hook knew Neverland and he knew what dangers lurked beyond that dark tree line; he’d warned them all from leaving the ship until the day dawned but a part of Regina didn’t particularly care. She wanted to go after her son and she’d have taken the rowboat and gone ashore herself, if the damned Charming family hadn’t used Henry against her.

She was no good to him dead; she would wait.

It had only been a few hours since he’d told her that he loved her, that he truly truly loved her and he was out there, alone - when she’d promised him she’d never let that happen - she was willing to do everything in her power to find him. She only wished she knew where to start.

“Swan is pretty, I’ll give her that, but all charm eludes the woman when she sleeps.”

Regina flinched, edging away from the pirate as he appeared beside her wearing a lop-sided smirk. He gestured behind him to the door below decks and Regina blinked, following the line of his hook as he pointed before looking back up at his face. She thought that perhaps if she ignored the tears in her eyes; if she didn’t attempt to wipe them away, perhaps he wouldn’t notice them. She was deluding herself, she knew that, and so did he. 

“The sounds coming out of that woman are not human.”

She allowed herself a small chuckle and a smile that didn’t touch her eyes, hugging the blanket tighter as he silently requested to take a seat beside her. Everyone had taken a bunk below decks; Snow and David curled together on a perch barely large enough for one. Emma had spread herself out with one arm dangling off the higher bunk and her face pressed firmly into a feather-down pillow whilst even the Dark One, resting with his back pressed firmly against the paneled wall, had drifted off to sleep.

Regina had thought she was the only one awake, sitting alone above decks, unable to sleep whilst her son was out there, lost in the dark of an island she’d heard stories about since she was a girl. It wasn’t the magical haven she’d read about in Storybrooke; the wistful tale of a boy who never grew up. It was a dark place; with a dark past and her heart raced knowing Henry was out there without her.

The trunk she was sitting on was not particularly wide, so when she gently inclined her head, not thinking of the consequences, the warmth of Hook’s side pressed firmly against her own startled her back into the world. 

She tried to shuffle away, catching herself on the edge of the trunk and sighed, letting out a puff of warm air in irritation. Hook just smirked at her side, watching her face as she kept her eyes set ahead of her. He could see the tear tracks down her face, feeling his throat constrict at the thought of what could be going through her head. He knew what it was like to want to change for your child, to have that love for another living being - not of your blood but of your heart - and to have it ripped away.

He had an idea of what she was going through, but his pain was far different, he knew. He’d only known Bae through Milah’s stories. He’d only understood his character through her smiles and her distant eyes as she talked of his most innocent moments, lying on her back against the cool wooden deck, watching the stars as she talked. He’d only known Bae, the real Bae, for less than a night; but he’d felt in his heart that he’d truly wanted to change for him; and for Milah.

Regina had spent ten years raising her son. The boy was hers by rights; regardless of the rest of the boy’s family following along for the ride. He knew in his heart, that the headstrong woman beside him was a lioness when it came to her child.

“I’m sorry, Regina.” He spoke softly; his voice far gentler than she was used to and she twitched. Her eyes drifted down; she refused to look him in the eye, but her vision changed direction so that she could see his face in her peripheral vision, blinking back tears. “I’m sorry I let them hurt you.”

“Stopping them was not of benefit to you.” It was Regina’s way of telling him she understood. And if there really was anyone that really could understand, he knew it was her. They’d never felt any malice toward one another. He’d never had reason to hate or fear her and she’d always been too powerful to fear or waste her time with him, unless she had need of him. They were on incredibly even footing and he found that wonderful. He respected her and somehow, she respected him.

“Nor would it have hurt me if I’d tried.”

She did look at him then, her eyes studying his face in the moonlight as she blinked. “Yes it would have. You’d have been risking your life, for what?”

“For you.” His lips quirked at the corners, not quite smiling and he could see a faint blush creep up her neck. 

“I’ve tried to kill you before.” She countered and he really did smile then.

“And I’ve always evened the score.”

“Where do we stand now?” She questioned, pressing her shoulder into his, almost imperceptibly. 

“Right here,” He smiled. “On the deck of my ship, with Neverland before us and the ocean around us.” He reached over, gently wrapping the fingers of his good hand around hers and letting her reaction be the definition of where they really were.

She didn’t fight him, she didn’t pull away. He released a breath in relief.

They’d never been able to trust, purely because the pair of them didn’t understand how. But they were on the same side now and for a change, they had reason to believe they were safe from each other. In this new world, with new dangers, they would need to depend on each other. Regina had to accept that those she’d spent her life trying to kill were indeed her family; they were Henry’s family and she would do whatever was necessary to ensure all of their survival. 

Hook too, it seemed, had come to the same conclusion. “Do you believe in second chances?” She questioned and they both paid no mind to how his fingers absently caressed her knuckles.

“I believe in third and fourth chances, love.”

Regina’s lashes fluttered as she looked down at their hands, smiling as she watched the motion of his thumb over a small scar on her middle finger. She remembered the scar from getting her finger caught in Rocinante’s bridle, the day her father had gifted her the horse. She’d run into the stables, cradling her bleeding hand wrapped in her scarf. Daniel had gently cleaned the wound, touching her as gently as Hook touched her, wrapping a bandage around her fingers before pressing a kiss to her knuckles. 

So much about Hook was so different to Daniel, but the touch was the same. Warm and comforting and his rich blue eyes bore into her in such a way that Daniel’s never had. Daniel was before; he was innocence and youth and pure love. But Hook was hard leather, stubble and coarse twine ropes. He was rum and sea-salt; he was callouses and a pain in his eyes that matched hers.

“You alright, love?” He whispered with his lips just a breath away from her temple. Regina stiffened at his side, suddenly feeling his proximity and pressing her eyes closed to fight the overwhelming desire to run.

“I just wish I could save him.” She breathed, letting her forehead tilt forward just enough that his chin touched her temple. She was pressing herself forward as her mind fought with her to pull back. Hook wrapped his arm around her, being careful not to scratch her with his hook as he pulled her against his side. She let out a long breath, keeping her eyes closed tightly as he kissed her brow.

It was so tender Regina’s heart stopped short; she froze against his side and wished for time to stop so that she wouldn’t have to face the feelings that one touch of his soft lips to her skin, brought up. “You will, darling.” She could feel his smile against her brow and she found herself savoring the warmth of his embrace.

“We don’t know that.” She whimpered and he held her tighter, letting go of her hand in favor of wrapping both arms around her. She buried her face in his neck, pressing her nose right behind his ear as his fingers wove through her hair, gripping the back of her head and holding her securely in his arms.

“You love your son,” He breathed as she shivered in his arms, breathing in the smell of rum and sea water against his neck. “You will find him.”

“You can’t know that.” 

“I don’t need to, love.” He smirked as she lifted her head; sitting up so that she could look into his eyes. She was so close he feared that she would be able to hear his heart beating against his chest. Her breaths came out in short, warm puffs of air, carried between them in delicate clouds that dissipated as quickly as they’d come. 

“Why?” Her eyes fell to his lips and Hook swallowed; watching her as she looked from his eyes to his mouth and back again. His tongue darted out, wetting his lips nervously as he felt the warmth of her hand - previously in her own lap - permeating the thick leather against his knee.

“Because I believe you will.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Snow,” She chuckled. “Or David.”

“Don’t insult me.” He laughed, feeling his heart jump into his throat as she muffled the sound with her full, burgundy lips against his own.

Hook shuffled back with his good arm wrapped securely around her waist. To his surprise, Regina obediently followed, refusing to break the kiss as she crawled across their makeshift seat onto a pile of rolled up sails. He rested his back against their trunk-come-seat, grateful for the softness of the sails beneath him as Regina straddled his lap, her knees pressed into the thick, old canvas. She breathed heavily through her nose, scratching her nails around his throat as she arched above him. Her teeth grazed along his lower lip and he grinned as she sucked it into her mouth before releasing it with a pop.

“This is probably one of your worst ideas, love.”

“Shut up.” Regina growled before pressing her swollen lips to his once more, reaching between them with a deft hand as he opened his mouth for the tongue that carried that razor sharp wit. He chuckled into her mouth as he realized she tasted just like apples and cinnamon and burnt roses and sounded much more delicate, with her soft whimpers, than he knew she was. 

   
She ran her fingertips so briefly over his abdomen that he barely felt it, like a whisper of a breeze against the waist of his pants before her small hand disappeared beneath his thick, leather belt. She smirked at him, tilting her head back and for a second he wondered what had amused her so, before her hand gripped his length tightly and his eyes widened in surprise.

He gasped as she stroked him, gripping her elbow with his good hand and digging his hook into the lid of the trunk behind him. She edged forward, grinding her hips into his as she continued to stroke him; her smirk growing wider in spite of the sheen that still lingered in her eyes.

“Tell me this isn’t just a game.” Her voice was small and a little broken; clear only because the night around them was silent and bright with stars. He could see her lips quivering and his eyes softened when her hand stilled but she didn’t remove it. He looked right into her eyes, brushing his hand along the fabric of her coat as he trailed a line up her arm, across her neck and buried his fingers in her hair, letting his palm cup her cheek as she looked down at him.

“No, love.” He sighed; his eyes flitting between hers. “We can be done with all games, if that’s what you wish.”

Regina let out a long breath, pressing her eyes closed and lowering herself down until she rested on his knees. He felt the absence of her hand more keenly than he was willing to admit, but when she pressed her cheek to his bare chest, just close enough for him to kiss the crown of her head and her arms wrapped around his waist tightly, he felt his heart beat all the faster.

Hook set his eyes ahead of him, pressing the palm of his hand to the back of her head as he focused on her small hands at his sides. He brushed his fingers against her brow, pushing her hair out of her face as he felt her warm breath against the hairs on his bare chest. She dipped her hand into his open shirt, pressing a small kiss just over his heart as she ran her nails down his sides. She sat up suddenly, looking down into his eyes and he fought the urge to reach up and wipe the tear that had broken free against her will away.

He lost the battle; the pad of his thumb falling against her cheek to brush the traitorous moisture away. “We’ll find him, love.”

Regina shook her head, breathing in deeply as she dove forward, taking his lips in a fervent kiss, grinding her hips down and clinging to him as he gasped into her mouth. Hook’s eyes squeezed shut, the fingers of his good hand gripping her jacket tightly as she twisted his hook and removed it from the latch that held it in place.

His hand ran down her back, pulling her closer now with the aid of his other wrist; assured as his hook lay on the sail beside them, that he couldn’t hurt her any more than the pain that already consumed her.

Gingerly, he removed the scarf from her throat; pulling it away slowly, watching it weave around her neck until it slid down her front and landed between them. She just blinked in the moonlight, watching him as he expertly flicked his thumb over the buttons of her coat until it fell open. He didn’t move his eyes from hers, studying every shadow and curve of her face as he pushed her black coat from her shoulders, dipping his hand and his hook-less wrist under the shoulders of her smaller red jacket until she was left - slightly shivering - in nothing but her black tank-top with her jackets pooled at her waist.

He didn’t waste any time; leaning forward he pulled her close with his fingers splayed out and his palm pressed firmly between her shoulder blades, sucking at her neck as she threw her head back.

Regina moaned, gripping his shoulders tightly, digging into the pitch black leather with her nails as he kissed along her clavicle. Her breaths shortened into throaty gasps that he could feel against his cheek and see in the air. Her lips pressed to his ear as he dipped his head down, kissing a line down her chest. He pulled her tank-top aside with his fingertips, kissing and biting at the flesh down the side of her breast. Regina gasped, shuddering against him as he reached a particularly ticklish spot. She gripped his head, brushing her nails over his scalp; his thick hair bristling over her fingers as she raised herself up on her knees, pressing her body closer into his, sucking in her bottom lip when his good hand moved down between their bodies.

Regina’s head fell over his shoulder; she bit down hard on her bottom lip as she felt his fingers fiddling with her belt. “Your pants are way too tight, love.”

“You’re a fearless pirate,” He could hear the laughter in her breathless voice and he smiled into her temple as she wrapped her arm around his neck. “Deal with it.” Just as the words left her mouth, his fingers worked out the zip on her pants, pushing her underwear aside so that he could press a strong, calloused finger to her centre.

Regina let out a strangled cry, doing her best to silence herself as she bit down on his jacket; her knees shook slightly but he held her firm with his other arm around her waist as he slipped two fingers inside.

“Oh my god.”

The pair flew apart. Regina quickly pulled her jacket and coat back over her shoulders, wrapping her scarf loosely around her neck as she scrambled from the pirates lap. He almost growled when she left him exposed, rolling onto his side to hide his obvious erection from their intruder.

“You have the worst timing of any living being, Swan.” Hook grumbled, dragging himself to his feet, watching Regina as she turned her back to them both. He told himself she was merely checking her appearance, but somehow he knew different.

“Sorry,” Emma said quietly, her eyes still wide. “I didn’t realize anyone was awake.”

“On the contrary,” Hook reached down for his hook, making sure to stand behind the nearest barrel as he clipped it back in place, still watching Regina out of the corner of his eye. She’d turned back around, but her arms were folded over her chest - her shoulders hunched - and her eyes were firmly set on the ground. “We were very much so.”

“I noticed that.”

Emma’s eyes bore into Regina and for the first time, Hook felt an overwhelming desire that he hadn’t felt for many years. He took one step towards the dark-haired beauty, making good on the surprising desire he had to defend her from the wrath of her son’s mother, when Regina’s head shot up, meeting his eye for a moment before glancing toward Emma.

“Regina, I-”

Regina cut her off. “Forget it,” She said quietly and Hook felt something inside of him sink at the sound of her broken voice. “Maybe we should all just go to sleep.”

She didn’t wait for a response, making her way toward the cabin as Hook opened his mouth to speak. She was gone before he could come up with something to say and he turned to Emma. Her mouth was still hanging slightly open, her shoulders pulled up in surprise and her hands hanging in mid air as though she didn’t quite know what to do with them.

“What was that?” She questioned and Hook suddenly felt a defensiveness that startled him.

“None of your business.” He grumbled, storming past her, bumping her shoulder as he headed in the direction Regina had gone, staggering down the steps with his still healing leg. He knew Emma wasn’t far behind, clearly having forgotten what it was she’d gone above decks to do to begin with and it infuriated him all the more that he didn’t have the chance to speak to the Queen before the blonde interruption was stumbling down the steps beside him and noisily climbing back to her bunk.

He stood in the centre of the room, watching Regina out of the corner of his eye as she quietly removed her boots, setting them on the floor beside her bunk before laying her coat over herself as a blanket and lying down to face the wall.

Snow and her prince were fast asleep, curled into each other in the bunk beneath their daughter and across the room, far closer to Regina than Hook would have liked, the Dark One was quietly snoring with his hands placed peacefully on his chest and his cane resting on the bed at his side, no doubt ready to clobber Hook in the night, should the need arise.

Hook hesitated, watching Regina desperately clutching at her coat to keep warm but refusing to turn over. He wanted to go to her, not to finish what they’d started, but in the hope that perhaps he could help heal some of the damage she’d been open enough to show him.

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, to get her attention but nothing adequate found him and he hung his head, setting his eyes in the cracks in the old wooden floor.

“Goodnight, Regina.” He whispered, just loud enough for her to hear before making his way through the cabin to the other end, where the door to his quarters sat ajar, and the lamplight flickered beyond.

**

Regina waited until she heard the faint creaking of the door, before she rolled onto her back, turning her head to the side so that she could watch his movements in the shadows creeping out through the crack he’d left in the door. His silhouette stretched across the room in the lamplight and Regina listened, blinking in the darkness, to the sound of his uneven steps against the floor.

She didn’t regret what she’d done or what she’d felt; only, perhaps, that it was Emma that had found them, but she didn’t want to dwell on how far they’d have taken things had they not been interrupted. 

She still quivered at the faint memory of his skilled fingers and lips, working at her neglected body. She pressed her eyes closed, savoring the memory of his rich blue eyes in the moonlight. But then Henry’s dark, troubled eyes were there too and she felt a chill down to her bones. He was out there in the dark; he was lost and frightened and she could imagine him looking up at the skies, cursing her for breaking her promise.

She felt tears sting at her eyes; quickly she wiped them away, shuffling onto her side as she saw Hook’s lantern go out. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but she could see Emma in the higher bunk across the room. She was certain the woman was awake; she could feel her eyes on her even if neither of them could quite see each other in the dark.

Regina hugged her jacket close to her chin, feeling the chill in the air more significantly, now that Hook’s arms weren’t around her. She hated to admit it, when her son was out there all alone; she hated to accept that Hook had helped her forget, for that one brief moment, that she was crumbling.

She couldn’t fight like she’d wanted. She couldn’t set the land on fire and she couldn’t threaten to destroy the world if they didn’t return her son to her. She had to wait, patiently; she had to rest. But for the life of her, she couldn’t fathom how the rest of them could sleep knowing Henry was lost.

Throwing her legs over the side of the bunk, Regina sat up. She took long, calming breaths, attempting to slow her thumping heart. She could still feel Emma’s eyes and she was grateful - as she padded across the cold wooden floor, her feet bare and her shoulders rife with goosebumps - that she’d never felt any great desire to justify herself to these people. She may need to keep them alive to ensure Henry’s happiness, she may have even awarded them a small modicum of respect, but that hadn’t changed who they were. And it hadn’t changed the bitterness she felt at having to listen to the sound of them sleeping.

“Regina,” A small voice called to her; whispering in the darkness. Regina pretended that she didn’t hear it. She pretended, with shoulders scrunched and her jaw clenched, that she didn’t hear the concern.

**

“Captain,” She breathed, crawling up onto the end of the bed, noticing in the moonlight from the one lonely window, that he’d lifted his head off the pillow to watch her. She ran her hand along his foot, grasping his ankle to guide her in the dark as she followed the line of his leg until her small hand gripped his thigh and she knelt on the bed beside him.

“What’s wrong, love?”

Regina shuddered over a breath, hugging her arms around her before he reached up, grasping her forearm and pulling her towards him. His quiet “Come’ere.” and the arm wrapped tightly around her was enough to scare away the chill for a moment before he pulled a blanket around her and let her tuck her small body snuggly against his.

“I couldn’t,” She choked, grateful that he couldn’t see her expression in the dark. She hated that she couldn’t control herself. She was so used to being so strong and she knew sheer stubbornness would prevent her from ever sharing this kind of vulnerability with anyone else on the ship, but she couldn’t breathe for the weight of fear on her chest. She needed to let it out.

Hook in the darkness, was as honest as she was willing to get.

“What is it, darling?” He trailed his fingers across her shoulder, drawing small symbols with the tip of his finger.

Regina shuffled closer, burying her face in his neck. For a moment he would have sworn he felt tears against his collarbone, but he didn’t mention it. He didn’t know her as well as he’d always believed, but he knew her well enough to know any admittance that he could feel her shoulders shaking would be akin to signing away all rights to this side of her.

“I couldn’t sleep in that room. Not with them.”

“I understand.” 

There was silence between them for a long time; Hook continued to caress her side, half expecting her to either stop him violently or straddle his lap, but she just lay there with her eyelashes every now and then, brushing against his ear. 

“I’m afraid.” She admitted so quietly he barely heard her. When she shivered at her own admission, he pulled the blanket tighter around her bare shoulders and smiled against her hair.

“Don’t be.” She could hear the smirk on his voice as his fingers dipped down to her side, brushing along the side of her breast much the way his lips had before they were interrupted. “There’s not a thing in these parts more powerful than you.”

“I’m frightened that we won’t make it in time to save him.”

“Rest, love.” He pressed a kiss to her brow, stilling his fingers because he knew there wasn’t any chance they were going to continue what they’d started above decks. Not tonight. She needed comfort and there wasn’t a single person on his ship qualified to give it to her, save him. The cynic in him would have called it a lack of options, were it not for his understanding of the dear Queen.

She was strong and she was determined and he knew, from experience, that she wouldn’t have come to him if she didn’t feel that she needed to. She didn’t need his protection - she was more powerful than them all, even the Crocodile, of that he was silently certain - but she was asking him for it. She was asking him to guard her dreams and so suddenly, he felt like it was time to cast the vengeful pirate aside and be the man she needed. She was on a headlong path to redemption, crashing and stumbling along the way and in her haste, she was asking him to take her hand and run with her.

It had started with the bean, with her declaration of love for her son. Her willingness to sacrifice herself and Emma’s passionate plea for him to accept when enough was enough. She was right. Being alone was only so good until the moment that it’s not. He knew that crawling into his bed in the dead of night was no declaration of love, but for Regina, it was a sizable step toward letting someone in.

Letting her stay was his step. Holding her tight and sharing his warmth with her was his first move and as she pressed her nose to his throat, burying half her face in his pillow and the other in his neck, he felt that maybe his time of being alone was over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't make apologies for the length of time between chapters, because I know very well the time-lapse will probably be about the same for every chapter. I'm trying to do this right and make it interesting; I ask only that you enjoy it, and bear with me.

The sun was slowly rising over Neverland, creeping it’s way over the Island’s prominent volcano and stretching across the crystal blue waters to touch the deck of the Jolly Roger in a warm, golden glow.

Regina blinked, shielding her eyes with her hand as she stepped up onto the deck. It was much warmer in Neverland than in Storybrooke; giving the whole group reason to cast their winter coats aside.

Emma noticed Regina crossing the deck as she brushed her dark hair out of her eyes. At the opposite end of the ship Gold and Hook were having a heated discussion about where to go next and she’d made the conscious choice to stay well out of it for the time being, feeling it prudent to let the two foes duke it out for as long as possible in the hopes they’d release some of that building tension.

David was standing nearby to intervene, keeping his hands at the ready each time Gold’s fingers tightened around his cane.

Emma was sitting on the stairs to the main deck and she watched Regina as she crossed from the berth, noticing how the woman’s eyes hadn’t left the pair of squabbling men since she’d emerged from below. Emma could see Hook over Regina’s shoulder and when his eyes set on the Queen, she noticed something strange pass between them. Regina’s shoulders tensed and in Hook’s eyes there was a certain softness she’d never seen there before. But it was a look she recognized.

“You went back to him, didn’t you?” Emma asked as Regina slowly sat down beside her on the stairs. There was roughly a hand-space between them, but each woman treated the space as though it wasn’t nearly enough. “Last night.” At Regina’s continued silence, Emma thought she’d elaborate. “You weren’t in your bunk this morning, but you weren’t up here either.” Emma decided against admitting that she’d been awake when Regina had quietly made her way into Hook’s quarters; certain that Regina hadn’t heard her call out to her before she’d left.

“Are you here to judge me, Miss Swan?” Regina questioned, feeling no need to justify her actions or lack-there-of, to this woman. She continued to stare ahead, watching the men bicker and avoiding looking at Emma. Neither woman could hear the argument, but when David decided it would be helpful to chime in, the aggressive hand gestures only increased.

Emma turned to study the side of Regina’s face, determined. “There’s a lot I can and have the right to judge you for, Regina.” The Queen turned; for the first time since they arrived in Neverland, the two woman’s eyes met. “But I’m not going to judge you for who you seek comfort with.” Both women studied each other. “I know what it feels like, to be alone.”

Regina studied her intently for a moment not really knowing what to say before her heart stumbled over her words as she choked out. “Thank you.”

“Did it help?”

Regina blinked, watching the younger woman pick at her thumbnail.

“Nothing happened.” Regina wasn’t sure why she felt the need to clarify, but Emma’s reassuring half-smile made her feel more at ease.

“Maybe, but you weren’t alone; for the first time in a long time, I’m guessing.” Her words were confirmed when Regina swallowed and averted her eyes to their feet. “So, did it help?”

“A little.” She let a smile touch her voice just slightly. “But it didn’t bring Henry back.”

Emma just nodded, rolling her shoulders before standing up. “I guess we’ll have to do that ourselves then.” She reached down, offering Regina a hand. Regina hesitated for a moment before taking a deep breath and raising her arm; two small hands wrapped around each other and Emma hoisted the woman to her feet. “We’ll have to break this up before Gold flattens Hook to the deck.”

Regina chuckled, following closely behind her as they crossed the deck, with Snow White climbing up from the berth behind them.

“So, have we reached a decision?” Regina silenced the fuming men with her sharp toned question, bringing them all to the attention that they’d gathered, ready to set out. Gold glared at her, David flinched, stepping back to stand between his wife and daughter and Hook’s lip quirked in amusement as he winked his eye at her.

“Much to Rumpelstiltskin’s disgust,” He smirked, looking to the imp with a side-on glance. “We’re heading to the far side of the island, because if there’s anyone that might know where they’ve taken Henry, it’s the Council.”

“The Council?” Snow questioned.

“Yes,” Hook turned to her. “We ramshackle bunch of thugs and thieves, are organized enough to hold council.”

“Who sits on it?” David asked, genuinely curious.

“From Pirate Lords to Indian Braves, it’s governed by the lord of the sea.”

“King Triton?” Regina blinked and Hook inclined his head.

“Indeed, my dear,” He smiled, sharing that almost soft look with her that Emma had noticed earlier, but this time he laced it with his characteristic humor as he pointed with his hook to Gold, over his shoulder. “Father of the mermaids and the one man Rumpelstiltskin seems to fear.”

Regina scoffed, turning to Rumple. “You’re afraid of Triton?”

“The Merman’s youngest daughter owes me a debt,” He huffed indignantly. “And he’s the one man with which, I’m not going to push the issue.”

“Shall we then?” Hook questioned and when none voiced protest, aside from Gold’s harrumph of displeasure, he set his feet wide at the helm and set sail for the farthest side of the Island.

**

“I want you to carry this.” Regina looked up as Hook stepped into her personal space, brandishing a small close-combat dagger in a beautiful filigree scabbard. She wondered who it belonged to, because it certainly wasn’t a Pirate’s weapon, being so much smaller and prettier than the Captain’s cutlass - ; but Hook’s persistent demeanor made her hackles rise. “Tortuga’s a pretty nasty place.”

“Do you think I’m incapable of protecting myself, Captain?” She narrowed her eyes, but Hook stood firm, holding the knife out in his up-turned hand.

“I’d just feel better if you had a little extra help, love.”

Regina dropped her hands to her sides, fists clenched and jaw set firm. “I don’t need it.” She stated cooly, shoving the gift away with an open palm. Hook glared at her, latching his hook around her wrist and pulling her close to him. Regina’s breath hitched as her chest collided with his, feeling the lines of his vest and his hard buckles through her thin, cotton tank-top.

He wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her firm as he forced the knife into the palm of her hand. “Take it,” He insisted through clenched teeth. 

“I don’t need your protection, Pirate.” She shoved him away, angrier than she should have been, but his assumptions made her blood boil. The idea that he thought their closeness the night before gave him any right to share such a public display with Snow and her family, not to mention Rumple; just made her want to take back every honesty she’d shared with him.

But as she staggered away a few steps, knowing all eyes were on them for a moment, the broken look in his eyes made her pause. She trembled under their scrutiny, doing her best to keep her eyes focussed on the man before her as she slowly, warily, moved back towards him.

“Why do you care?” She questioned; touching the scabbard with her fingertips, but not taking it into her hand.

“The woman this belonged to,” He spoke quietly, keeping his voice low enough that the others wouldn’t hear. “Milah was her name,” He smiled wistfully and Regina’s fingers slowly wrapped around the scabbard. “I wasn’t able to protect her.” She looked up from their hands suddenly, catching the intensity in his bright blue gaze; it unnerved her. “It’d just make me feel better if you had a backup, love.”

All she could do was nod dumbly as she pulled the dagger to her chest, holding it over her heart as she stepped away from him; her eyes stayed locked with his as she backed away - clipping the scabbard to the waist of her pants, underneath her thin red jacket - and she had to forcefully tear her eyes from his as Emma called her name.

“Regina?”

“Yes,” She blinked.

“You ready?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

Her no nonsense demeanor fell back into place and Regina strode across the deck, climbing up the ladder to the gangplank. Emma eyed Hook carefully, watching as the pirate shuffled about on the upper deck for a few minutes before taking a deep breath, rolling his shoulders and joining the group. They shared a glance, within which his eyes warned her away from any questions, before he pushed ahead of the rest to lead the way down to the docks.

**

Hook was right. The bay of Tortuga was a messy, flea-ridden pit of mud, spilled blood and debauchery. Buildings were knocked together with pieces of wrecked ships; pieces of Frigate held the main structures together, whilst a full Sloop stood tall on top of the closest tavern. There was a lop-sided brothel called The Faithful Bride made out of a tipped over Galleon missing it’s bow, held up with unsteady beams and empty rum barrels.

The streets were lined with drunken miscreants, staggering and brawling across the path. As they made their way through the narrow passageways between buildings - with Hook in the lead, followed by Regina, then Gold, with Snow, Emma and David close behind - scantily clad women with matted hair and poor dental hygiene, spilled through the doors of the brothels with lurid smiles and bulging corsets.

Regina’s nose scrunched in disgust as Hook stepped over a one-legged pirate that had fallen face-down in the mud, edging her way around him and rolling her eyes at Rumple as the imp pressed the end of his cane into the man’s back. The look he offered her in return was near-expressionless, but she caught the faint glimmer of a smirk at the corner of his mouth.

There was a putrid smell of rot and brine on the air, and the sound of music and cheering coming from inside the rows of taverns and brothels, did nothing to charm the atmosphere nor did the image of two drunkards merrily dunking a uniformed man’s head in a shallow well. David pushed Emma ahead of him, keeping Snow close at his side as they side-stepped two sailors that stumbled off a balcony, continuing their brawl that had begun within doors.

A large brute staggered out ahead of them, tripping over the step down into the street from a lopsided establishment labeled - on a broken piece of driftwood - The Dancing Monkey. His shoulders were twice as broad as David’s and his torn brown shirt hung off one shoulder, stained with spilled rum. His long brown beard was mottled with food that had missed his mouth and as he righted himself from his tumble, he set his dark, oily-black eyes on Regina.

“My, aren’t you a pretty one, lass.”

He lurched forward, faster than any of the group could react and faster than they’d expected of a man that could barely maintain an even rhythm of one foot in front of the other. 

In the blink of an eye he had Regina pressed up against an old mainmast that had met the sharp side of a boarding axe; his breath smelled of rotten fish and rancid beer and the wind was knocked right out of the Queen as his heavy frame crushed her small one to the solid wood. “How much do you cost?” He hissed in her ear; his horrid breath ruffling her hair as he slurred. “Haughty one, yo gotta be worth a bit. I bet you’re good though.” He ground himself against her and Regina screwed her face up at the smell, trying to struggle free before she managed to get her fist between their bodies, pulling warm, pulsing magic into the palm of her hand.

Before she could loose the bolt of energy, a strong hand clasped one of the man’s shoulders just as the shining tip of a hook pierced his other, covering her face in a faint spray of blood. He was suddenly reefed across the street, landing with a splat in a putrid pig trough; his arms sticking in the festering mud as he moaned in pain.

“She’s a Queen, ya flea-ridden blaggard! You keep ya rotten hands off!” Hook angrily thrust his heavy boot into the man’s stomach, rolling him over with the force of the blow before he spun around on the spot, his long black coat spinning out around him as he froze, meeting Regina’s eye. “You alright, love?” He breathed, seeing the magic still crackling in her palm. She was frozen in place - much as the rest of their company - stuck staring at him with short, shuddering breaths escaping through parted lips. Her eyes were wide and unfocused and whilst the magic still crackled in her palm he feared to reach out and touch her before she responded. “Regina?”

“Regina?” Snow’s gentle voice broke the Queen from her trance, glassy eyes turning to the girl that was once her daughter and memories flooded the older woman, forcing out a strangled sob. Hook stepped forward, but Rumple stopped him with a look before raising his hand to wrap around Regina’s that was still pulsing with barely contained power.

“That’s enough, dearie.” He spoke gently; everyone watched closely as Rumple stopped the magic, sending it back into Regina as he guided her hand back down to her side. “It’s not him,” Both Emma’s and Hook’s ears pricked up at the statement but no one said a word. “You’re fine, Regina.”

Hook couldn’t help but wonder what had just happened and an anger flooded through him with the knowledge that there was something about the Queen only Rumple seemed to understand. Snow had an idea, if the sound of her voice was any indication, but the only one that seemed to be able to stop the panic in her eyes - ironically - was the normally manipulative imp. 

“I’m alright,” She sighed, nodding at Gold before her eyes drifted over his shoulder to Hook. The corners of her mouth flirted with a smile, attempting to reassure him. “I’m alright.”

“Come on,” Hook grabbed her by the hand, dragging her past the fallen, bleeding body of her attacker with the rest of their group following closely behind. David clutched Snow close to his side, gripping Emma’s hand tightly as he guided the two women after Hook and Regina; Rumple hobbled at the rear, leaving a deep boot-print in the side of the unconscious pirate’s face before taking his time to catch up.

Regina didn’t protest the contact with Hook, in fact, she gripped his arm tightly, staying close as their party reached the edge of town and filed into the large, dilapidated colonial building on the edge of the water.

“What is this place?” Emma asked over a ruckus as Hook led them through the rundown foyer. They followed him through to where there was candle wax dripping over the top of barrels to hold big, thick candles in place, lighting the way to a large open room in which an oval table sat in the centre. All around it there were shouts and hollers and beer steins being hoisted across the room. The hall was large, with high ceilings and the damaged cornices of a once ornate council room.

One entire wall was missing, broken away leaving ripped wooden panels, torn-up floorboards and a makeshift dock of moss-ridden planks leading down into the water. It almost looked like the huge bow of a Frigate had once rammed the building in the wake of a canon-ball. It left the room open to the vast, clear blue sea that lapped against the foundations.

“It’s the council chambers.” Hook responded, feeling the loss of Regina’s hand as she dropped it, stepping away from him with a determined set of her jaw. He didn’t try to reach for her again, knowing it would only cause her to move even further away; instead he stood at her shoulder, just a step behind her.

“This is the council?” Regina questioned incredulously, the arrogance dripping off her tongue with well-practiced ease. “They’re ridiculous.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” A voice spoke from the corner and Regina’s head whipped around, her eyes searching the room for who had addressed her. She eyed the man that had spoken. He was a few inches shorter than the one-handed pirate and he was heavier set with dark eyes and he had a thick, black beard braided in two. She turned to Hook, suddenly curious of his reaction. She studied him closely as his eyes pressed closed tightly; his shoulders hunching as the man moved past him to address her. “I’d say it has a certain, je ne sais quoi.” He reached for Regina’s hand, raising it gently to kiss the back of her knuckles before glancing at Hook. “Wouldn’t you say, Killi?” 

“What are you doing here?” Hook hissed through his teeth and the older man smirked, winking at Regina before making his way towards Snow and Emma, greeting them each in turn and nodding to David - who defensively pulled both Snow and Emma closer - before turning back to Hook.

“Is that any way to greet your dear old Dad, Killi?”

“This is your father?” Regina questioned and Hook glared at the older man.

“Edward Teach, m’lady,” He smirked in Regina’s direction, taking a slight bow. “At your service. But most just call me Blackbeard.”

“Like,” Emma blinked. “The Dread Pirate Blackbeard?”

“The one and only, lass, Captain of the Queen Anne’s Revenge. I see my reputation precedes me.” He grinned, looking her up and down. Emma’s brow furrowed and she stared incredulously at the back of her father’s head as David stepped in front of her defensively.

“You could say that.” Rumple scoffed, drawing the old pirate’s attention.

“You’re one to talk, Dark One.” He smirked and Rumple rolled his eyes, clutching his cane tighter as he held it in front of him.

“Wait, Blackbeard is your father?” David questioned, pointing his finger at Hook who looked up at him with a long-suffering expression.

“Not one of my finest attributes, I’m aware.” Hook grumbled.

“Is that any way to talk of your old Papa?” Blackbeard sidled up to Regina, eyeing her salaciously as Hook gritted his teeth. It was clear the man knew how to ruffle Hook’s feather’s, pinning his easiest target the moment the group had appeared in the council hall.

He rolled his eyes up from Regina’s toes to her eyes and stepped up beside her with a wide, yellowish grin. “What is it you’ve come back for, boy?”

Regina wasn’t comfortable with the attention; but entirely aware of it’s intention, she held her ground. She raised her chin defiantly, pulling her hands into fists at her sides as the dark pirate licked his lips. Hook’s hand around her wrist startled her, dragging her away from his father and gruffly shoving her behind him.

Blackbeard just chuckled as he watched his son’s reaction, knowing he had him on edge.

Regina opened her palm to pull a web of magic forward, but Hook’s good hand at her waist, holding her behind him, halted her. She wasn’t sure why - normally she’d have thrown the captain to the ground with her magic for such behaviour. The heat of his hand and the pressure of his fingers through her thin cotton shirt, made her tense and she stayed her magic, instead choosing to rest the hand she’d raised against his back, pressing small fingers to the gap between his tense shoulder blades.

“We’re looking for a boy,” He held his father’s eye. “He was stolen from their home and we want him back.”

Blackbeard looked around at the group, eyeing each member of the mis-matched family with curiosity. “The boy is important.” Blackbeard stated and both Emma and Regina flinched, but Regina was the one to speak.

“Of course he is, he’s my son.”

“Oh, I don’t mean to you, lass.” All amusement had fallen from his dark eyes as he studied her. “They’ve been searching for him for a long time.”

“Who has?” Snow chimed in, stepping past David, but not out of his reach.

“The Shadow.” A great booming voice caught them off-guard.

The whole group turned, watching as a large man rose out of the water. The man was the size of a small titan. He had broad shoulders and arms as thick as David’s waist. His long, thick, white hair and beard covered his bare shoulders and chest and the ornate golden crown on his head left no doubts as to who this man was.

He stepped up onto the dock and as a bare foot touched down on solid land, scales morphed into drapes of stark white cotton, growing out of his scales and wrapping the man’s body like a toga as he moved into the room. His size visibly diminished, drawing him down to their level, but he still towered over the largest man in the room.

His presence silenced the entire council. The Pirate lords took their seats and the Indian Chief inclined his head in a sign of respect; the feathers of his magnificent headdress ruffling with the movement. The grat man e tapped the end of his trident on the ground before raising it high above his head, pointing it ahead of him and laying it flat down the middle of the table.

Regina stepped towards the table, the presence of the Queen clear in her eyes as she stared down the man three times her size. “What does the shadow want with my son.”

“No one knows,” Triton inclined his head; his well known kindness shining in his eyes. “The Lost Ones have been searching for hundreds of years, and now they have him.”

“Well we have to get him back!” Emma demanded, storming up to stand beside Regina.

“And how do you propose that be done, madam?” Triton’s gaze moved to her and both she and Regina felt like scolded children under his eye. “You have the Dark One at your disposal,” He gestured. “You have the Black queen of the White Realm,” He inclined his head with respect for Regina’s title and she looked up at him with confusion in her eyes. How he could have possibly known who she was, was beyond her. “And you come to us? What do you suggest we do?”

“We go after them!” David stepped forward, gripping Emma’s elbow in support, standing shoulder to shoulder with the two women.

“With what?” He sat back in his chair at the head of the table. “You don’t even know what you’re up against and you don’t even know what you have.”

“We know we need to get him back,” Snow spoke up quietly. Regina looked over her shoulder, catching Snow’s eye as she spoke and feeling a slight burn at the corner of her own eyes.

“Please,” Emma stepped out of David’s grasp. “We need to know where we can find him.”

“Well, it seems to me you already have the greatest map to Neverland at your disposal, am I right, Captain?” Triton raised an eyebrow at the sullen pirate who had retreated to the corner of the room, digging a gouge in half-rotted wood with his hook as he listened to the group.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Hook grumbled, glaring sideways at Blackbeard who crossed his broad arms over his chest.

“Ask the dear Lord Jones of home.” Triton encouraged them.

Regina turned, looking over her shoulder at the pirate who immediately looked up at her. Out of all the people gathered in the room, it was her opinion that mattered the most and he couldn’t believe that just a few days ago, he’d handed her over to the maniacs that now held her son. He blamed himself for the marks still apparent on her temples, harsh red burns that were a constant reminder of a choice he wished he’d made differently.

“What is he talking about, Hook?” She spoke quietly and he flinched, twitching under their scrutiny.

“Who’s fault is it,” He ventured, looking up at them and doing his best to avoid Regina’s dark, questioning eyes. “When a child is left to fend for himself?” He pointedly looked to the man who stood with his coarse black beard rested against his broad, puffed up chest.

Blackbeard didn’t respond, only watching his son sideways as Hook pushed off the wall. “Yes, I was one of them,” Regina blinked at the admission, turning to face him completely as he stepped up to her and Emma. “I was one of the Lost Ones, but I got out. I may know where their hideout is, but that doesn’t mean that’s where Henry is.” He tried to assure Regina with his eyes, that he was telling the truth; he needed her to know he hadn’t been holding out on finding her son. 

He turned back to Triton. “You know full-well why we’re here, Your Majesty, so please, stop playing games.”

Triton smirked, waving his hand over his shoulder. Within moments two young women emerged from the sea, appearing much the way Triton had, letting their fins turn to swathes of cloth as they stepped onto dry land. The silent lords of the pirate council dropped their eyes to the table-top as the two women stepped up to either side of the great king.

“Why aren’t they looking?” Emma whispered to Snow who shrugged her shoulders.

Rumple smirked. “It’s death to any man of the land to seduce one of the daughters of Triton.” He shrugged as they all looked at him. “So they don’t even look.”

Emma nodded dumbly, watching the two women move to stand next to their father in loose drapes of crimson and auburn cloth, falling over their bodies loosely. She smirked when she noticed Snow slap David’s stomach with the back of her hand, forcing her father to avert his gaze and clear his throat.

Hook smirked at the display, watching Regina standing tense before the king, out of the corner of his eye. He was attempting to be subtle about how intensely he was watching her, but his father, the brooding pirate at the back of the group - with a fully-equipped arsenal strapped to his chest - noticed the way his son’s eyes roamed the Queen.

“My daughters,” Triton gestured to the two beautiful women with a proud smile on his face. “This is Attina,” He held the hand of the tallest and kissed her fingers in greeting. She had long, auburn hair that fell to well below her waist, adorned with a string of pearls across her head. “And this,” He reached for the other, swathed in crimson fabric with rich, dark curls pinned back on her head with intricate cuts of the most vibrant corals. “This is Adella.” The King turned serious eyes on Regina. “They will find your son.”

“I thought you said you knew nothing?” She looked between the King and Hook, searching for an answer. Hook resisted reaching over and squeezing her arm in reassurance. They weren’t there yet. She wasn’t ready for that kind of familiarity; she didn’t completely trust him yet and regardless of how much he wished he could, he didn’t trust her either.

“Never trust a mermaid.” Rumple piped up, stepping up to Regina’s side.

“What?” She gasped.

“These creatures are devious, your Majesty,” He cocked his head at her. “I thought you’d have known that.”

“What are you talking about, Gold?” Emma practically growled.

“They won’t help you without a price, Dearie,” He turned, glaring at Emma with a half-snarl. “Or haven’t you had enough dealings with me to work that out?”

“Fine, what’s the price?”

“Oh, Mermaids don’t work that way, do they your Highness?” Rumple turned back to the fuming King.

“What’s it matter, if we get Henry back?” Emma stepped towards them, away from her parents.

“Oh, you don’t want to be indebted to a Mermaid dearie,” He glared at the King. “Trust me. Mermaids are not what they seem.”

“We ask for nothing.” Triton spoke gently, his eyes set on Regina who was chewing on her bottom lip with her brows pulled together in deep thought. She was ringing her hands, twisting her fingers tightly until it hurt. Hook watched her, barely able to stop himself from doing so since she’d stepped onto his ship and he’d admitted how he felt the moment he’d abandoned her with Greg and Tamara.

Rumple scoffed. “I find that impossible to believe.”

“You once did something for me, your Majesty.” The King looked down at Regina with a kind, honest smile. “This is my thanks.”

“What did I,”

Triton cut her off with a finger to his lips and a devious smile. Slowly he turned to each of his daughters, whispering something in their ears before they each dashed back towards the water, throwing themselves over the edge. As they dove into the water their swathes of rich fabric sculpted to their bodies once again, wrapping around them like ribbons as feet became vibrantly colored fins.

“They will find these people that have taken your child,” He inclined his head. “Do not fear, Majesty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Be Continued.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm currently reading Peter Pan, the original J.M. Barrie and I had forgotten how much I loved it. Also astounded myself with the relationship between Hook and Blackbeard. The book is beautiful and whimsical and it's interesting to see Peter Pan as something other than the perfect hero. Wonderful story telling. I hope that I can even halfway do it and Once Upon A Time, justice.

“So what do we do?” Emma asked, watching as the wake of the two mermaids disappeared into the flow of the ocean.

“We wait,” Rumple stated matter-of-factly, earning a solid glare from Regina.

“That’s it? We just wait for them to find Henry and bring him back to us. That’s ridiculous! We need to do something, we need to find my son!” She shook with anger, turning to each of them, an incredulous panic in her eyes.

Her eyes set on Hook, pleading with him silently to help her. He averted his eyes for a moment, listening to the pirates scuff and scrape their beer steins across the weathered table-top before he looked back into her eyes with a solemn expression. “We don’t know where to start, Darling.”

No one made comment of the endearment and to Regina’s credit, her eyes began to glisten at the instant of it’s use. She felt a warmth within her each time he used such words.  
“I can’t just do nothing.” She choked and Hook nodded, reaching for her hand, taking it gently into his and running the pad of his thumb over her knuckles.

“Just give them a little time, love.” She seethed at the idea, but Hook pushed on, gripping her hand to stop her from pulling away. “If there’s no word by morning, we’ll start ripping the forest apart, alright?”

The small touch of humor seemed to help, causing the corners of Regina’s mouth to tip up but did nothing for the scowl on her face as she stepped around him and dropped his hand.

“Fine,” She stated, making her way for the doors. “If there’s no word by morning, I’m going after my son.” She stormed out, the fire of her frustration burning in her eyes as she left the council chambers.

***

“You gotta pick up the pace, kid.” Tamara threw over her shoulder at Henry, who was trudging behind her; struggling to maneuver over rocks and fallen trees with his hands bound in front of him. Greg followed closely at his side, shoving his shoulder forward every few steps.

“If you’d untie me, it’d be easier to move.”

Greg laughed beside him, dropping his pack by the side of the waterhole as Tamara moved back towards them. “You’re a smart kid,” She smirked, touching his cheek gently but Henry angrily pulled away from her, glaring daggers. “Do as you’re told and it won’t be so hard.”

“I won’t do anything you tell me.” He spat. “My mom’s going to find us and you’re both going to regret what you’ve done.”

Greg sneered, standing up straight and towering over the boy with a menacing expression as Tamara spoke. “You think your mother frightens us?” She laughed. “There aren’t any more beans in Storybrooke. Even with all her magic,” She smirked, shrugging her shoulders as Henry’s confident expression faltered. “She can’t follow us here.”

“She’ll find me!” Henry yelled. “She’ll find me and she’ll make you pay for this!”

Tamara forced Henry to sit on a log with a hand on his shoulder, looking down at him in amusement as she moved over to Greg.

Henry could feel the tears burning at his eyes. He wanted to cry; he wanted to so badly, but he didn’t want them to see it. He didn’t want them to know that he was terrified. He was not even twelve. He kept telling himself that he had to be tough, he had to be strong and he had to hold out hope that his mom and Emma were coming for him. They’d always come for him, he was sure of it. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw his mom’s face in the mine, trying so hard to save them all and he could feel the tears starting to sting.

They’d been walking through the swamp for hours; struggling over tree-roots and rocks, stepping through deep puddles, dipping the ankles of Henry’s pants in freezing water. Henry didn’t like it amongst the trees. When they’d fallen out of the portal they’d hit a beach and immediately, his captors had dragged him into the dark, overgrown jungle. He’d spent his first night sleeping outdoors, as close as he could curl to the small fire Greg had built them. He’d barely slept a wink, listening closely to the sound of the ocean lapping at the shore in the distance and the strange and wonderful sounds of foreign creatures in the dark.

The rest of the night he spent thinking about his mom and how much he regretted not telling her enough, that he really did love her.

Out of the corner of his eye, Henry caught sight of something moving in the water. Leaning his elbows on a tree-root, he leaned further over to see it, smiling as he made out the pretty face of a woman coming closer; making her way towards him from beneath the water.

“Hello,” She smiled as her head breached the surface. Her long, auburn hair spread out across the water, curling around her shoulders and glistening in the thin rays of sunlight through the tree-tops. “You must be Henry.” She smiled and he nodded, taken aback that she knew his name.

“You know me?” He questioned, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Greg and Tamara weren’t paying him any attention.

“I do.” She nodded, bobbing in the water; raising her arms up onto the bank to keep her steady. 

“You’re a mermaid, aren’t you?”

“You’ve heard of my kind, have you?”

“I’ve read about them in books. There’s a really famous story about one named Ariel; I always liked that one.”

The mermaid screwed up her nose, snorting in disapproval as she rolled her eyes. “Typical,” She grumbled and Henry frowned.

“I’m sorry.”

“Ariel is my sister.” She rolled her eyes again.

“Really?” Henry’s eyes lit up at the knowledge. “So you’re one of Triton’s daughters! That’s so cool.” He grinned. “Have you come to rescue me?”

“Have they hurt you, boy?” She gestured to the pair behind him with her eyes. Henry looked over his shoulder, watching them as they were digging through their things before looking back to the woman in the water.

“No. But they said they’re taking me to someone who might.” He blinked back tears. “I asked them why they were doing this but they wouldn’t tell me; all they said was that their reward was going to be huge.”

“Oh, I would imagine so,” She nodded, nonchalantly. “You’re pretty popular, young Henry. Famous around Neverland, even.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes.” She smirked.

“Hey!” A voice bellowed from behind Henry and the woman looked up, glaring as Tamara hurried over to them. “What’s going on here?”

“I was just chatting with Henry here,” The mermaid moved along the edge of the water, moving closer and closer as Greg stepped up to Tamara’s shoulder. “And it intrigues me that the pair of you would be out here in the swamps with such...” She glanced at Henry who was watching her closely. “Precious cargo.”

“How would you know what the kid’s worth?” Greg spat.

“I may not know what he’s worth to you,” She smirked, stepping up onto the bank and Henry’s eyes bulged as he watched the glittering, shiny scales of her tail wrap around her body in drapes of sepia cloth. She stepped up to the couple, circling them like a predator as she pressed her fingers to Greg’s chest. “But I know what he is worth to his family.”

“That’s impossible. They can’t have followed.”

“I think you underestimate the power of a mother’s love.” She breathed in his ear, letting her lips touch his earlobe, ignoring Tamara’s look. “A mother’s vengeance is swift and unforgiving,” She started pulling him towards the water. Henry watched enraptured as Greg willingly followed, his eyes locked on the eyes of the mermaid as she stepped back into the lagoon, pulling him by the lapels of his jacket. “And this boy has two.”

“Greg, stop,” Tamara grabbed at his arm but he tried to shake her off. Henry watched in confusion. “Stop, she’s tricking you!” Tamara tried to pull him back, grabbing at his arm, tugging on his jacket but Greg was in a trance. She chose another tack, reaching for the woman who was dragging him into the water, scratching at her arms, shoving at her chest to throw her back in the water.

“Get off him!” She screamed, shoving the woman who’s beautiful face morphed so suddenly into something monstrous, screeching as sharp fangs protruded from her mouth and her fingernails ripped at their clothing as she clawed for purchase, viciously grabbing for Greg, trying to pull him under.

The attack brought him out of his trance and he pulled at the tree-root Henry had been leaning on, grabbing for Tamara’s hand as Henry clambered away, stumbling back away from the commotion as the mermaid clawed at Greg’s boot and the two women played a tug of war with him.

Greg’s heavy boot flew out at her head, knocking her back down under the water just long enough for him to clamber to his feet. 

“Quick, run!” He shouted, grabbing Henry who’d frozen in his place as Tamara grabbed their bag and they dashed through the trees.

“But she said my mom was here!” Henry shouted, wanting to go back and find out more, even if it meant facing that monster.

“Mermaids are notorious liars!”

“But she said I had two moms. How else would she know that if Mom and Emma weren’t really here?”

Greg and Tamara shared a look, each of them knowing the boy was right. “Just be quiet and run!” Greg growled at him, dragging him through the trees so fast Henry’s feet barely touched the ground.

**

Regina stormed ahead, the hard heel of her boots smacking against uneven stone as she ran her hands through her hair in frustration. Hook watched her closely, wanting to reach out and grab her arm, to stop her from doing something she was going to regret.

Their whole group dropped to a crouch as Regina’s arm flung out, exploding a barrel of rum sitting unassumingly by the side of a tavern. She raked her hands through her hair again, pulling at the ends as she groaned her anger through gritted teeth. 

She dropped her arms down to her sides, stepping up the front step of what Hook had told them was an adequate place to spend the night. The building wasn’t a palace by any means, but with it’s small door hanging off it’s hinges and the chipping blue paint on the window-frames, the place was almost quaint. There was a ruckus coming from inside, but the group was quickly learning that anywhere they went in Tortuga was bound to be loud and unforgiving. This place was no exception.

Regina stormed up to the door, stomping her boots on the cracked floorboards before a strong hand at her elbow reefed her back. 

“Unhand me!” She shrieked, pulling against his hold but Hook didn’t budge.

“You lot go ahead,” He gestured inside with his eyes, mainly making his point to Emma who ushered her parents in with Rumple, remarkably, right at their heels. He supposed even the Dark One didn’t enjoy Regina at her most emotional.

Magic was emotion after all and Regina had a lot of both.

“Let me go!” She bellowed again, pulling against his arm and when the rest of the group were inside, he finally released her. She stumbled, catching her foot on the step and staggering to keep herself upright as she fell against the edge of the Well. The streets were narrow and winding, buildings stacked on top of buildings, blocking out the setting sun and casting shadows across their faces. 

“Are you done?” He questioned and Regina huffed, blowing a lock of hair out of her eyes in annoyance. “Regina?” He questioned; she crossed her arms over her chest defiantly.

“Why did you do that?” She hissed.

“Because there is no way you’re going to blend in, in that crowd.”

“You didn’t stop Emma and her parents from going in there. What makes me so different?” She tilted her head with a raised eyebrow. 

Hook’s expression softened and his voice lowered to a gentle, comforting tone. “Do I really have to say, darling?”

She blinked, watching his eyes roam her features. She cleared her throat at the look in his eyes, fighting with the small smile that pulled at the corner of her mouth.

“Plus, you’ve still got a bit of blood on your face,” He smirked, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and dipping the end in the Well’s bucket. “Hold still.”

Regina snatched the cloth from his hand as he raised it to her face, glaring at him as she tried to wipe the blood away on her own. “I can do it.” She growled, unable to shake the anger from her bones.

“Never said you couldn’t, love.” He smiled gently, realizing Regina’s mood for what it was. She was compensating for the frustration she felt. With all her magic, she wanted to be able to tear people apart, rip up the earth and knock down buildings to find her child. But she couldn’t. And Regina wasn’t a particularly patient person. “But we don’t have a mirror, so how about you let me do it.”

Hook reached for the cloth again, attempting to pull it from her grasp but Regina held on, tugging it towards herself, unable to curb her anger no matter how hard she tried. She wanted to hurt something or someone so that the ache would disappear. She wouldn’t relinquish the cloth, fighting with him until they stumbled back and his body crushed her’s against the side of the Well, her shoulder-blades pressing against the post of the awning.

Her eyes widened in fear, her body stiffened and Hook froze, looking straight into her eyes. His expression softened and Regina’s eyes fell between them, trying her hardest not to look into his. He’d seen that weakness twice now and Regina feared he was just the kind of man to call her on it.

“Who hurt you, love?” Regina closed her eyes; she was right. She finally relinquished the cloth as she let out a long, deep sigh, feeling an overwhelming and unexplained desire to tell him everything. For a pirate there was a kindness in his eyes that made her want to trust him and a warmth that made her want to wrap herself in his arms and never leave. Several feelings she’d never associated with that particular pirate before. 

Oddly enough, she felt safe.

“My husband,” She said softly, her voice more quiet and broken than he’d ever heard; a far cry from the Regina everyone feared. “Snow’s father.” Sensing that she wasn’t going to be able to honestly or wholeheartedly tell her story with his full attention, Hook busied himself with the smudges of blood on her cheeks; delicately wiping them away with the gentlest hand. “He was not...accustomed to needing to ask for what he wanted.”

Hook’s hand stilled on her face and for a moment, Regina’s eyes met his. They stayed that way for long enough that Regina was well aware he knew what she’d implied, though she was unable to voice it without tears.

She cleared her throat, looking away again as he resumed cleaning her brow and she lowered herself to sit on the Well wall. “Snow never really knew; she knew I was unhappy, but she was too young to understand the extent of it,” She shrugged her shoulders. “So was I, really.”

“How old were you, when you married the king?” Hook questioned gently and Regina looked him in the eye.

“I was sixteen, Snow was twelve.” Regina gave a small laugh. “Before he asked me, I actually thought she and I could have been friends; I was never allowed to have many. But I was a fool.”

“Regina, how often did he do this to you?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “We were married seven years before he...” She swallowed. “Before he died.” Hook pursed his lips, feeling a swelling of pride in the pit of his stomach as he watched her. He knew exactly what she wasn’t telling him and he could tell she wasn’t proud of what she’d done, but he couldn’t help the glow he felt when he looked at her, knowing she’d had the strength to save herself.

“Regina,” He encouraged and she blinked, watching her hands twitching in her lap as he continued to wipe the blood from her face. He was sure that all of it was now gone, but he was unable to stop his hand moving for fear that she’d stop speaking.

Hiding her eyes, Regina’s voice came out low and quiet. “It was every night, really. Sometimes he’d be away from the kingdom for a week or so,” She took in a deep breath. “Or sometimes he would take me with him; he said it was to expand my knowledge of our kingdom.”

“Seven years,” He breathed. “Regina, seven years?”

“Yes, I know, I lived it.” She snapped, looking up into his eyes with tears threatening to fall. Hook stopped with the handkerchief, replacing it with his calloused fingers to caress her cheek, looking down into her eyes with a gentle reverence and an anger in the pit of his stomach.

“No one should have to.”

“You heard them,” She spat. “I’m evil, remember? I deserve what I get.”

“A sixteen year-old girl does not deserve to be raped every night for seven years!” His voice rose angrily and Regina found herself gripping his arm, clinging to that hot rage she’d bottled inside of her for so long.

“I have done things just as wretched in order to wash the memory away, I don’t count myself as innocent.”

“You were innocent then.” He defended, annoyed by her self-deprecation.

“But I have destroyed myself since,” She sighed. “And the worst of it is, none of it has washed the image from my mind.”

Hook’s fingers on her cheek stilled, cupping her face gently. He studied her features closely, wondering on just how strong this woman had to be to survive the damage that had been thrust upon her. He knew about her lost love, her mother had been remarkably candid about that, no doubt taking pride in ‘saving’ her daughter from the match. But this new revelation just made him wonder how this beautiful, broken woman continued to go on.

She sat before him, capable of so much cruelty, so powerful and yet, so fractured. She sat before him, slouched against the wall of the Well, looking up into his eyes with tears so close to falling he wanted to reach up and wipe them away before they marred her golden skin.

“Regina,” His voice came out quietly and a little cracked; he was startled by the power in her eyes, the capacity for love that was overwhelming and the spirit that was stolen, having spent years trying to pull itself back together.

She looked up to him again, leaning into his hand as her eyelashes fluttered against his palm.

“How...” He swallowed, unsure of how she was going to take the question but he had to ask. It was something he needed to know. “How did you never have any children?”

Regina’s eyes dropped to the ground as a single tear escaped her precarious hold as more followed in it’s wake. She froze, her shoulders tightening and her back, dead straight.

She cleared her throat, fighting against that lonely tear. “I was taught,” That she didn’t deny him an answer startled him. She looked up and over his shoulder; Hook turned, seeing where she had caught Rumple’s eye through the window of the tavern and suddenly, he knew what role the Imp had played. “There were spells,” She elaborated.

Regina’s eyes came back to his and he carefully brushed the tear away, tucking her hair behind her ear as he held her face in his hand. “I would have been mother to five, had I not been so afraid of hating them.”

Regina fell into his chest then, sobbing and clutching at his jacket with an intensity that shook them both, bringing a sting to even Hook’s eyes as he held her.

***

Blackbeard whistled as he walked, sauntering down the narrow alleyway that lead to his son’s favorite haunt. It was a pokey little tavern, tucked in a back alley where crew of the Jolly Roger drank for free and the password at the door changed with the tides. He’d never really enjoyed the ale there, or the rum; but he found a curiosity in what had brought his boy back to Neverland.

He’d heard stories of the infamous Captain Hook throughout the years and across the realms, knowing that Killian had become just as feared and beloved as himself; proud that his boy had managed to shake the shame of his youth. He was proud, if silently, that he’d been able to shake the shame of his father. 

But it wasn’t something he was about to tell him.

He stopped walking abruptly, hauling himself back into the shadows as he noticed his son standing by the shallow Well in the centre of the alley. For years the Well had served no purpose but to dunk heads in and block the already narrow passage; but Blackbeard could see just now that it also served as a half-way decent perch for sobbing Queens.

He tilted his head in curiosity as he watched the woman, beautiful and rather fearsome as she was, clutching at the lapels of his son’s dark coat. And to his great surprise, his heart-guarded child held her in his arms as though one space between them would destroy them both.

Words were whispered that he couldn’t decipher and he could see by the way that she buried her face into Killian’s chest, there was an indefinable familiarity between them. He’d noticed Killian’s favor for the Queen back in the council chambers, when he’d fought for her son. But this closeness now, this tenderness, was not expected.

He watched; with a smile on his face that he wasn’t entirely aware of, as the Queen leaned back, looking up at his son with such softness in eyes that had long ago, brought death and destruction. 

Oh he’d heard stories about her; he was fairly certain there was not a person in the realms who hadn’t heard of the Black Queen. But he’d expected a dark and twisted individual, with manic hair and cruel, empty eyes. But this fresh-faced beauty with tears marring her sun-kissed cheeks was a shock to the pirate who had faced the Kraken and lived to tell of it.

As she let his son touch her cheeks and brush the hair from her face, Blackbeard marveled at them. Studying their quiet discourse with a familiarity that choked his heart. He felt his expression soften as he watched the tender exchange, wondering for a moment if his son would hate him more than he already did, for intruding on the private moment. That was until he noticed the Queen’s hands and how they reminded him so much of Killian’s mother’s.

He found himself more interested in studying her than his son. He knew Killian; he knew him better than any living creature in all the realms had right to know him, even if neither man was willing to admit the fact. But this Queen, this, Regina. She was a mystery and she was a story heard from across worlds.

And her strong but delicate hands clutched at his son as if Killian had the power to save her; they made him want to know her.

He was proud of his boy. As proud as a pirate could be, of a child he’d abandoned.

He pressed himself into the shadows, hugging the wall as Killian raised Regina from her seat, tugging on her hand and leading her across the passageway to the door of the tavern. “Don’t promise what you can’t deliver, Captain.” She quipped with a half-amused smile as they stepped up to the door.

Killian turned her to face him, touching her chin with his fingertips. Her back was now to him and he had to hide his face further into the shadows for his son would no doubt recognize his silhouette, even in this place; especially in this place.

“We’re on the same team now, love. I won’t let this pain find you again.”

“Captain,” She warned but Killian’s smirk stopped her.

“After all these secrets you’ve told me,” He dipped his head with a slight blush. “After that night on the ship, you can’t call me Killian?” There was a chuckle to his voice and Blackbeard found himself smirking.

“No.” She stated simply, stepping out of his hold and disappearing into the tavern. Blackbeard dived behind the wall when she disappeared from between them, the only thing in the passageway that had been distracting his son from realizing he was there. Killian stood there for a moment, looking out into the darkening night as Blackbeard stayed in the shadows, breathing deeply with the worry that his son had known. 

His boy listened intently, sticking his neck out into the dark, listening for anything suspicious. Blackbeard had to think quickly; pulling a small dagger from his belt he grabbed a passing pirate - a short-statured man with a lopsided hat and an inability to hold his liquor - and stabbed him in the gut. He thrust the knife into his side, concealing the wound as he tossed the man down the narrow path. He skidded across the cobblestones, his face impacting with the harsh ground.

As best he could, around the corner of the building, Blackbeard watched his son’s reaction. The rouse seemed to have been enough. Killian shouldered the noises he’d heard as a drunk stumbling down the corridors and he shrugged his shoulders, turning on his heel and following the Queen into the scabby, rundown tavern.

***

 

Henry curled in on himself as Tamara threw him to the ground, narrowly missing a sharp rock as he fell. 

“Where are we going?” He questioned as Greg dropped their bags beside a tree trunk with a great, resounding sigh of relief.

“We’re not going anywhere,” Tamara spoke, stretching her back as she looked up at the stone ruins that surrounded them. The rocks were covered in moss, so old that trees were growing on top of them. There were fallen statues all around and carvings in the stone that gave Henry the feeling that the place had been there for centuries. Sitting up, he looked around as well, realizing the place they’d chosen to sit was right up against the face of a fallen monolithic statue that had a melancholy expression.

“Well what are we doing?” 

“We’re waiting.” She turned to him with a smirk. “They’re going to come to us.”

“And you think these people are just going to give you a reward for me?”

“Of course they are.” Greg sputtered, incredulous.

“Right, because all people from all magical lands and not, operate in the same way?” Henry raised his eyebrows in question and Greg and Tamara shared a look. “See, the magical people I know are my Mom and Rumpelstiltskin and as far as I know, they weren’t really the kind of people that handed out rewards and sent people on their way.”

“What are you getting at, kid?” Tamara clenched her teeth in annoyance and Henry just shrugged.

“Nothing really,” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I mean my Mom always told me not to get my hopes up too high, in case I was disappointed. I guess I’m just saying,” He shrugged again. “Maybe it’s best if you don’t assume they’re just going to give you your reward and let you go.”

“Ignore him, Tamara.” Greg rolled his eyes, pulling out a granola bar and ripping open the packet. “He’s just a kid.”

“He’s a pretty smart kid.” She defended and Greg shook his head in amusement.

“Not more intelligent than us, just ignore him. He’s just trying to rattle you,” He leaned in close to her, speaking conspiratorially. “He just wants us to let him go.”

“Well the rattling is working, Greg. What if he’s right?”

“He’s twelve!” He raised his voice, annoyed the conversation had moved this far at all. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s just trying to get under your skin.”

“Well it’s working!” She cried. “Not only do we have his god damned family following us now, but we don’t know who these people are. We don’t know what they’re going to do to us once they have the kid.”

“Do you even know what your reward is?” Henry questioned and the two looked at him.

“No,” Greg answered quietly and Henry pressed his lips into a thin line.

“That’s not good.” He absently turned his eyes to the ground, drawing circles in the dirt with his finger. “They’re probably going to kill you.” The answer was so nonchalant that Greg’s nostrils flared in annoyance.

Tamara’s temper exploded and her eyes blazed in anger; reaching out, she swiped the palm of her hand across Henry’s face and the sound cracked through the air like a whip. Henry cried out in pain; the red hand-mark appeared on his cheek almost immediately but the struggle to pull himself back up into a sitting position, with his hand pressed to his cheek and a glassy sheen of tears in his eyes, took a little longer.

“See,” Greg said in irritation. “Rattling you.”

“If these people who want me don’t kill you, my Mom certainly will.” Henry ground out through his tears, still holding his hand to his burning cheek.

***  
Hook sidled up to the bar as he watched Regina make her way over to the rest of their group. They’d already made themselves as comfortable as possible, fitting themselves into a dark booth at the back made of black-lacquered hardwood; he could see Snow’s face scrunch up in disgust as Emma pointed to an obscene carving in the wood panel behind their heads, artfully crafted out of candle-wax that dripped from the table and the cornices.

“New recruits?” Hook’s head spun around at the question, smirking as he met the eye of the barman; sharing a common memory of rough seas and months without shore.

“Not exactly,” The pirate captain answered, leaning his arm on the bar, relaxing as he would on his own ship. After all, the Tavern was the closest thing he had to the Jolly Roger on dry land. One could even call it his home, in a sense.

“That tall one,” The barman gestured to the Prince with a beer stein in his hand and Hook smirked in amusement. “Talked like a nobleman he did, but he knew what to order. Knew what to ask for so as not to get the water.”

Hook chuckled. “He’s a prince by all stately appearances, friend, but he’s common at heart.” He rolled his head over his shoulder with a grin. “Aren’t we all?”

“Aye, that’s true.”

Hook tapped his hook on the counter and the man produced a bottle of rum and a glass with a wink.

“So what brings you back our way, Capt’n? I didn’t expect we’d see you again,” His countenance became solemn and Hook nodded his head. “Least not for a long while.”

“Forty years isn’t a while?”

“Not in these parts,” He laughed. “You know that.”

“Well, I have some business to attend to. Doing some good for a change of pace,” He laughed. “Does it suit me?”

“If the look that lass is giving you is any indication, I’d say it suits you pretty well fine, Capt’n.”

Hook smirked mischievously, holding Regina’s eye as the man mentioned her. She threw him a curious glance and he pursed his lips in amusement as he turned back to the barman.

“Here’s a laugh,” He chuckled. “Give the lass a key to my room and tell the rest you’re all booked out but for one. It’s a cruel joke, but they’re in my world now, I’d be best to have my fun whilst I can,” He nodded, turning back to wink his eye at Regina, who’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Plus, it’ll amuse her and she’s in need of amusing.”

“Consider it done, Capt’n.” The man chortled, nodding his head to the captain as he grabbed his rum and pinched an extra glass from the counter as he disappeared up the dark, narrow staircase behind the bar.

***

“Did you do this on purpose?” Regina questioned; tugging at her red jacket as she entered her room. She pulled the jacket from her shoulders, even as she asked, crossing the room to where Hook was casually lounging on the bed with a smirk on his lips.

“To a degree,” He nodded and Regina smiled down towards her toes as Hook raised himself to sit on the edge of the bed, tugging her towards him with his hand on her hip and his hook slipped through one of her belt loops. “No pretense, love,” His voice lowered to a gentle octave as Regina looked down into his eyes. 

“And yet here you are, hiding in my room.” She smirked, causing her eyes to sparkle with mirth and he tilted his head with raised eyebrows.

“Actually,” He nodded thoughtfully. “This is my room,” He gestured around and Regina, for the first time, noticed the space. It was dimly lit with every surface covered in candles dripping with years of melted wax. But the surfaces were mostly clean and the possessions laid about the room gave it a personal air. There was a large armoire in the corner of the room, carved in the manner of the spanish renaissance and heavy bronze sconces forged in the shape of Scottish Thistles.

“Oh,” Regina breathed as she realized her mistake, slowly understanding what it was he had done.

Hook’s eyes danced. “Just thought you’d appreciate not being alone, love. And having a bed not riddled with fleas.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Captain.” She smiled softly, letting her fingers run through his hair as she rested her elbows on his shoulders.

“The gesture doesn’t entirely lack my usual flare, darling.” He grinned. “In order to keep up the ruse, I had to insist their rooms were few. Unfortunately, Snow and her dear family will have to share with the Dark One.”

Regina laughed a full-bellied laugh, bringing a smile to his lips as the humor lit up her face. She hugged his head with her forearms, leaning over him as she shook with laughter before looking down into his eyes, letting her mirth die out slowly as he watched her.

“I thought you’d appreciate the lightness of it,” He grinned and Regina nodded, watching her own fingers as she ran them through his hair from his brow to the back of his neck.

“I did, thank you.” She breathed, studying his lips as he raised them up to meet hers gently. “I thought you said no pretense?” She grinned, so close to his lips the touch between them was like the faintest touch of feathers.

“None, love,” He laughed, shaking her with it as he held her against him. “I just really want to kiss you.”

“I suppose you’ve earned it,” She smiled, closing her eyes as the distance between them all but disappeared and she was cocooned in the warmth of his hands and his lips; her knees resting on the edge of the bed as he angled back in order to hold onto her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Be Continued.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said no apologies for the length of time between chapters, but this one was a particularly long gap and I am sorry. But hopefully, as you read on through this and know that it was a painstaking process, you will find it in your hearts to forgive me.

Killian woke to the sound of a cockerel. There was light filtering through the windows, casting the room in a soft, cerulean hue. He could see his breath as he looked up at the ceiling, leaving his lips in faint, moist puffs with each breath.

It was far too early for the sun to have crept over the horizon, leaving shadows in the dark corners of Tortuga as Killian hugged Regina closer. She’d snuggled into his side in the night. As the fire had slowly died she’d crept closer and closer still, until the dark fabric of her jeans was pressed against worn leather and they shared both the blanket and his long coat for added warmth.

Mornings in Neverland were his favourite, with the distant sound of singing birds and the far off drums of the Piccaninnies; beating their farewell to the hunters who left before the dawn.

“They’re going to talk.” Regina’s gravely, tired voice startled him. He hadn’t realized she was awake. He turned his head, smiling as she looked up at him with her chin pressed to his shoulder and her eyes, blinking against the dim blue light.

“About what, love?”

“This,” She gestured, and though the movement of her hand was brief his assumption that she was referring to the manner in which they’d spent the night, was correct.

“Since when do you care what they think?”

Regina smirked, resting her cheek on the pillow again, pressing her eyes closed for a moment as she licked her lips. Killian watched her, utterly enthralled by her.

Though he’d known from the moment he met her, that she was beautiful, he’d never taken a great deal of time to study her. He’d watched her from the roof tops of Storybrooke, but to her mother’s ends. He’d watched her as she’d circled him in her chambers, in that palace he’d always assumed far too large for one. But he’d never really taken the time to really look at her. He was too busy stabbing her in the back and being stabbed, just as tenaciously, by her.

“They want to know which side I’m on and if I don’t choose theirs, Henry is truly lost.”

Killian reached over, turning his shoulders so that he could look her square in the eye. She watched him carefully, her eyelashes fluttering as he reached up and brushed a lock of hair from her eyes. “Do you really think it’s a matter of good or evil anymore, darling?”

“Isn’t that what it always is?”

He marvelled at her innocence. For a so-called Evil Queen, who had slain and murdered, pillaged and clawed at vengeance, she was remarkably innocent to the world. He supposed that’s what happens, when you steal the dreams of a little girl and mould her into a monster.

“There is never only two sides, love.” He smirked, running his fingers through her hair and cupping the back of her head. She leaned into the embrace, smiling as she felt his fingers trail a line down her throat, over her collarbone to rest in the dip of her clavicle as he spoke. “There’s you and me and then there’s the Swan and her Charming family.” He smirked, kissing the tips of her fingers as she pulled them up between them. Regina chuckled gently, surprised by the touch. “And then there’s the Crocodile; surely you don’t think yourself in league with any of them and they’re certainly not in league with each other.”

“So what does that make us?” She shuffled closer, wrapping her fingers around his, beneath his chin. “Because we’re certainly not good.”

“Neither are they, love, and that’s precisely my point.”

“So what,” She smirked. “Are you and I in the same league?”

“What do you think?”

“You and me, against the world?”

Killian grinned. “If you’d like.”

Regina released his hand, reaching out to touch her fingers to his chest. She felt the soft hairs against her fingertips, watching her own movements - knowing he was watching her - as she trailed a line down his chest. The pendants on his heavy chain chinked as they fell aside and he could feel his skin heating up the further down she traveled.

“I don’t know.” She pressed her stomach to his, looking into his eyes through her lashes as her small hand disappeared beneath the waist of his pants. “You and me and forget the world, sounds a whole lot better.”

Killian’s breath caught in his throat as she stroked him; her cold fingers causing his body to jerk, incidentally thrusting against her hand. Regina startled, letting go for a moment before his hand gently gripped her wrist.

“It’s alright, Regina,” He breathed, brushing his thumb over the pulse point as their eyes met. His normally bright eyes had darkened to the colour of the ocean just before a storm, as he watched the blacks of hers spread out to overtake what was left of the chestnut within. “Just a little cold,” His voice shook just slightly as she leaned forward, pressing her lips to his jaw with a smile.

“I can fix that.” She continued to trail a line of velvet kisses across his jaw, the feel of rough stubble brushing against her full lips and scratching against her chin.

“I’m sure you can, love.”

Regina pulled herself up to sit beside him on the bed; deftly she released the ties of his pants, tugging them down over his knees just enough for him to kick them off himself as she lifted one leg over to straddle his waist. Killian grinned up at her, dipping the fingers of his good hand beneath her shirt. He trailed his fingers up her spine, guiding her down to rest against his chest with his hand splayed out against her shoulder-blades. He ran his tongue along her lower lip as she arched into him, pressing her lips to his.

“You’re okay with this, darling?”

Regina didn’t answer, instead pressing her lips to his once more in a bruising kiss. Suddenly she sat up, knees on either side of his waist, reaching for his left wrist that lay on the bed beside him, smirking as she twisted his hook off and leaned over him to place it on the bedside table. 

“Safety first,” He jested, seizing the opportunity to press a tender kiss to her throat. Regina moaned, tilting her head and leaning into him to allow him better access. He inched her shirt up as he peppered kisses along her collarbone, raising his eyebrow with pride as, one handed, he skilfully removed her the thin black cotton. The tank-top hadn’t been much to begin with, but she still shivered in the early dawn chill, hugging her arms against her sides. 

Killian sat up, holding her against him as he pulled his own shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor. She did her best to ignore the cold, wrapping her arms around him, placing wet kisses to where his heart beat wildly in his chest.

She hesitated for a moment as they sat there, chest to chest in the middle of the bed; her small palm hovering over his heart. She could take it. The thought crossed her mind for a split second, forcing her to press her eyes closed tightly, pulling her fingers into a fist as she bit down on her bottom lip, hard. 

She knew it was the fear.

“Hey,” His calloused fingertips against her cheekbone caused her eyes to blink open, startled when she was met with tender blue light. “Whatever you’re afraid of, Regina,” He smiled. “It won’t find you here.”

“I know,” Her lips quivered as she attempted to smile and she nodded her head. “I know,” She ground her hips into his, clutching his shoulders with short nails and strong, agile hands, forgetting the brief thought that taking his heart might protect her own. “You’re not him.”

Killian blinked at the statement; understanding. “No, love,” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “I’m not.”

Regina captured his mouth again, this time biting down on his lip, pulling it between her teeth as she reeled back, grinning. Killian laughed as she released him, reaching down between them for the silver buttons on her jeans.

She raised herself up on her knees so that he could push them down over her hips and he let her out of his arms just long enough for her to roll over, kick her jeans off the side of the bed before scrambling back again. Regina’s skin was flushed a warm pink and she could no longer feel the chill, even as she crawled over him in her bra and panties, pressing him back down into the mattress.

“You know what I noticed first, about you?” She questioned, pushing on his chest as she rocked her hips against his. He stifled a moan at the friction she caused, stilling her movements with his hand against the inside of her thigh.

“What?” He smirked, watching her tug at one strap of her bra, as he desperately gripped her thigh in his broad hand.

“Your eyes.”

“Dashing, aren’t they?” Said eyes sparkled with mirth as Regina unclipped her bra slowly. 

He watched her eagerly as she slipped the garment over one arm, letting it fall away, the lace strap trickling down her arm until it dropped from her wrist, over the side of the bed.

He took a moment to admire her, running his fingertips from her hip; pressing his palm to her belly as she leaned down; her bare stomach and chest to his, resting her palms on either side of his head. 

“No.” She shook her head, looking down into his eyes; she sucked in her bottom lip when she felt his touch at the edge of her breast and she giggled, arching away from his frosty fingertips on sensitive flesh. He held her tighter, intent to reverently trace a line across her ribs, around the curve of her exposed breast to the valley in between. His eyes raked over her as she squirmed, following the line of his thumb as the calloused digit flicked over her pert nipple, making her suck in a harsh gasp.

He hadn’t seen such a thing as her in a few hundred years and he wanted to savor it for he didn’t know when he’d get the chance again.

“They’re just like mine.”

“Yeah,” His voice was deep and raspy as he breathed in through his nose, almost forgetting the point she was making. “Noticed that too.”

She didn’t speak anymore, nor did he when she smothered his open mouth with a fervent kiss. 

He slowly removed her panties in much the way he had her jeans but he didn’t wish to let her go, clinging to her hips even as she fought, growling deep in her throat when she couldn’t shake them off. Regina allowed herself a small cheat, flicking her wrist to dispose of what was left of their clothing in a small spark of magic that left the air crackling with electricity.

He laughed, full-bellied and thick like honey as she grinned above him in triumph.

He caressed her soft, supple thigh as his fingers trailed down and her lips quirked with wonder at how skilled he was with just one hand. He caused her eyes to roll back in her head with every touch; the back of her knee, feathers against the inside of her thigh, the sensitive warmth of her core. His broken stub of a wrist held her slight waist to his as she halted his words with breathless kisses and strangled gasps.

Regina cried out as he entered her, her small hands clawing at the sheet on either side of his head; he held her hips firm, keeping her motionless for what felt like an eternity, breathing deeply before he started to rock his hips back and forth, eliciting small whimpers from her parted lips. 

She pressed her cheek to his shoulder, her hair falling over his arm as they moved in a slow, steady rhythm. The smell of apples assailed him, tasting her skin spiced with cinnamon as he dragged his teeth and tongue across her throat. She gasped his name, open-mouthed, into his shoulder when he lifted her higher, garnering sharp, breathless moans from deep in her throat.

 

**

“Where’s the captain?” Bill Jukes bellowed, stomping through the front door of the tavern as the sun hit the tallest of the land-bound masts in Tortuga.

“How’d you know he was back?” The barman asked, having long since known Jukes and his tattoos from the hawaiian maidens of his forearms to the bloodied skulls of his bared back. They were shipmates, back when the barman went by Gentleman Starkey and lived up to the moniker. 

“We were drinking down by the lagoon and we heard the Mermaids conspiring.” Cookson glared. “Don’t the Captain know better than to trust the Mermaids? Or has he been off away from the Neverland too long to remember?”

“The Captain hasn’t lost an inch of his smarts and you’ll be well to remember that when you see him, lest he slice you from navel to nose, Cookson.”

“Is he here, Starkey?” Bill’s impatience showed in the sharp cut of his question; beady black eyes bearing down on the man as his broad arms flexed against the bar.

“He’s in his room,” Starkey nodded, throwing his thumb over his shoulder as if to point the way. Jukes and Cookson immediately scrambled for the stairs, but Starkey’s voice stopped them short. “Beware though, the Captain’s not alone and I get the feeling that woman won’t take kind to being disturbed.”

Both Jukes and Cookson scoffed at the idea, disappearing from view as Starkey went back to absently cleaning his bar.

**

Hook heard them before they arrived, the stomping of heavy boots on narrow stairs a reminder of years passed. Regina fidgeted next to him, nuzzling her nose into the side of his neck as she wrapped her arm around his tighter. He clung fast to her thigh, held firm in the strong expanse of his broad palm.

She’d curled around him only tighter in the cool twilight, with a soft sheet wrapped around their bodies to ward off the chill. It did little in the act now, having bunched up around their middles leaving feet and shoulders bare. Regina had buried her bare foot beneath his calf in an effort to keep warm, resting her small hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat against her palm.

Silken olive flesh pressed against skin tarnished by the open sea as Hook smiled at the way her hair had fallen in her eyes and stuck to her temples; her cheeks still a little flushed.

“Captain!” He heard voices bellow; two very familiar voices, with faces attached that were going to meet the butt of his cutlass for disturbing his peace.

“Captain!” They shouted again and Regina grumbled beside him, pressing her face firmly into the pillow as Hook chuckled at her reaction. Heavy feet, like the sound of a herd of bulls approaching, rattled up the hallway with haste and suddenly, closer than he’d thought, they burst through the door. It bounced off the wall with a resounding bang - and if the rest of the tavern wasn’t awake, they were now - as the pair of them clumsily exploded into the room.

“Captain, you have to come quick!” Jukes demanded as his Captain blinked up at him; unmoving from the comfort of Regina’s hold. She was more like a blanket than a Queen at that moment and Hook would be remiss to say he didn’t enjoy it.

“What’s going on?” She grumbled, brushing her hair out of her eyes as she raised herself onto her elbows, holding the edge of the sheet to her chest. The light coming from the windows behind their two intruders was far too bright and she was forced to squint, holding her other hand to her forehead as she tried to discern their features.

Cookson let out a long whistle, looking Regina up and down - who was caught in the golden dawn light - before winking his eye at the Captain. Hook just rolled his eyes.

“The lady asked a question, lads. What is so urgent that you needed to disturb our slumber? Our incredibly comfortable slumber, that is.” The look in their Captain’s eye left no room for hesitation and the way Regina was looking at them with dark, half-lidded eyes, was a clear indication they didn’t want to cross her either.

“We was drinkin’ down by the lagoon and we heard the Mermaids conspiring against you, Captain.” Jukes explained, the flush of their haste slowly leaving his cheeks.

“What do you mean?” Hook sat up in the bed, dragging his discarded shirt from the floor and handing it to Regina with a faint smile. She took it; their fingers touching briefly as she did so, before she pulled it over her head and sat up; crossing her legs underneath her, and watching the pirates closely.

“There was something about a deal and a reward. They were laughing about you and some family that’s come from far away looking for their boy.”

Regina’s ears pricked up. “What did they say about the boy?” She raised herself onto her knees, eagerly. Hook rested his good hand on her knee, but she only glanced at him before turning back to Jukes.

“No great detail, miss. But they said they’re going to send the Captain into the mountain after him. The Mermaid’s ‘ave got a little grudge against him, ya see.”

Regina turned to Hook, her eyes wide with fear as he gripped her hand tighter against her leg. 

“Where are they really taking him?” Hook practically growled.

“We don’t know, Capt’n.”

“What’s going on?” Emma appeared in the doorway with a sheet wrapped around her shoulders. Everyone turned to her and it was clear that she’d slept in her boots, scuffing them on the wooden floorboards as she studied Regina’s wide-eyed expression. 

“We think we know where they’re taking Henry.” Regina breathed and Emma shared a brief, hopeful smile with the woman. She wasn’t surprised at the state in which she saw the Captain and the Queen, so she didn’t dwell on the obvious intimacy of the setting. 

Regina was thankful for it and the small smile Emma offered.

“Did they say why they wanted him, Lads?”

“No.” Cookson shook his head. “Just that Peter’s been after him for a long time.”

The Captain slammed his hook down on the side-table - having clipped it back in placed once Regina had fallen asleep - shaking with the force of the blow so greatly that Regina jumped clear out of her skin. He reached for her again, gripping her hand and pulling her toward him. She wouldn’t go; staring at him with worried eyes; but she allowed him to brush his fingers reassuringly over hers.

“Peter Pan, love.” He spoke softly, as though uttering the word aloud would call the cretin to arms. “The most dangerous being in these parts, bar you.” He smirked at the last of his comment, earning a look through her lashes and the faintest smile.

“Even more dangerous than your father, or Rumple?” She smirked and Hook eyed her with mirth, lowering his voice to a gentle octave.

“My father couldn’t hold a candle to you, darling. And you know the Imp far better than I.”

Cookson and Jukes shared a look of profound confusion, startling when more strangers bustled into the room.

“What’s all the commotion?” Snow White appeared behind Emma, hands on her daughter’s shoulders as David lingered in the hall.

“Why would they want my son?” Regina questioned, all but ignoring Snow’s question but for a glance in her direction. She chose to ignore her step-daughter’s scrutinising, curious gaze. “Henry’s never been a part of any of this, I never even taught him magic, I couldn’t.”

Her eyes met Emma’s, as if she felt the need to assure her of that single truth.

“We have to go after him.” Regina muttered, eyes open wide, imploring the rest of their group. David pushed between his family, facing the two pirates. His stance was no more imposing than Jukes, who was larger than him by at least a hand. But his expression; stoney and determined, had him towering over the ruffian men.

“You’re sure about this?” He demanded and the two men stared at him, wide-eyed. Cookson nervously glanced at the Captain who gave him a curt nod, encouraging him to answer the prince.

“We heard them, clear as day. They’re taking him over the island, to where we don’t know, but there are two others with him..”

“Greg and Tamara.” Emma growled; everyone looked up at her.

“How will we find him?” Regina questioned but the rest of the room was silent.

“Well,” The sudden sound of Hook’s voice startled the men and they turned to him quickly. “We best start working that out. Lads, round up five of our best and meet us outside.” The two pirates were quick to follow the instruction, shoving past the group still huddled in the doorway. Emma made a face at the smell as they brushed by her, coughing audibly, which earned her an elbow to the side from her mother and a stern look. She shrugged and waved her hand in front of her nose. David rolled his eyes at the theatrics and made his way back to their room.

“Come on, we better get dressed.” Snow ushered Emma out of the room, leaving Regina sitting in the centre of the bed and Hook watching her closely as she looked down at her hands in her lap.

“What’s on your mind, love?”

She let out a long breath. “It’s like with every step we take, Henry’s just that little bit further away.” Hook pulled his legs under him, crawling across the bed to where she sat; her normally rigid posture bowed in disappointment. Reaching up, he cupped her cheek with his palm, pressing his lips to hers tenderly, earning him a small smile as she pulled away. 

“We’d better go.” She said softly, looking into his eyes before she climbed out of the bed.

Hook watched her as she picked up her clothes; she pulled his shirt over her head and dropped it on the bed for him, before dressing quietly with her back to him. She tugged her jacket on and he watched her carefully, with a small smile on his lips, as she picked up her dagger and tucked it into her boot. “I’ll meet you downstairs.” She said quietly, looking at him out of the corner of her eye before disappearing out the door.

***

“Do you know what’s going on with Regina and Hook?” Snow asked quietly, stepping up to Emma’s side. 

“No, I don’t.” Both women were watching Regina carefully as the woman navigated the narrow stairs down into the bar.

“She said he gave her comfort.” The blonde shrugged and Snow turned to her daughter, shocked.

“She confided in you?”

Emma scrunched up her nose. “Hardly. I asked and she answered, in her very vague, Regina way.”

“But you knew they were sleeping together?” She gasped, curious.

“No,” Emma scoffed, tilting her head as she watched the pair, standing close together by the foot of the stairs, whispering quietly to each other. “At lease, they weren’t when we spoke about it.” They both noticed how Hook’s hand wrapped around Regina’s briefly, before she pulled away. “I suppose he gets her, that’s all.”

“But I’ve known Regina longer than anyone...”

Emma cut her off, turning to her. “Maybe, but you don’t know her, not really.” Snow’s eyes watched her stepmother closely with that troubled look she always seemed to get when there was something she didn’t quite understand. Especially about the woman whose love she’d wanted, her whole life. “He does; he understands.”

Emma turned back to see Hook guiding Regina out the door with his hand at the small of her back. “We can’t understand her, we’re not built that way. But he can and you know what,” Emma started to follow them, turning back to look her mother in the eye. “I’m glad of it.”

“Why?” Snow looked perplexed.

“You said you know Regina better than anyone?” Emma raised her eyebrows in question. “Tell me this whole situation wouldn’t be entirely different if he wasn’t here.”

***

Henry hung his scarf carefully over a windblown tree-branch as Greg and Tamara washed their faces in the stream. He checked his work, careful not to make it too obvious so that his captors wouldn’t realise what he was doing. “You’ll work it out, Mom.” He said quietly, twisting in his spot to hide it behind him as the pair returned to where they’d tied him to a tree.

“Come on,” Greg grumbled, untying him and dragging him to his feet. The man was a brute when he knew his victim couldn’t fight back; shoving Henry and calling him names. But Henry could see that Tamara was the one he should truly be afraid of. The way she looked at him sent a shiver down his spine every time she turned around to check Greg hadn’t slipped up and let go of the rope.

“They should have met up with us by now.” Tamara grumbled and Henry felt a tug on his bounds as Greg pulled the rope tighter. 

“We’ve been here some time, Miss.” A voice startled all three of them, when out of the jungle appeared a tall, hooded boy with straggly blonde hair and a sallow complexion. “We’ve been following.” They looked all around them to see they were surrounded by even more hooded boys.

“You’re the lost ones?” Tamara asked.

“Indeed we are.”

“Then we’re here for our payment. You can have the boy and we’ll be on our way.”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way.”

“What do you mean?” Greg’s voice wavered just slightly and all but Henry, standing right beside him, missed how his hands were shaking.

“You’re to come with us.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Tamara scoffed. “We have no business with you but the boy, take him, pay us and we will be done with this.”

The tall boy moved slowly toward Tamara, inching closer with a harrowing, uneven gait. When standing before her, he towered over her, forcing her to look up into his black, empty eyes.

“You will come with us. Or you will die.”

Tamara swallowed and nodded her head slowly, with eyes wide as saucers.

**

“Never traveled with so many women before,” Cookson grumbled in Jukes’ ear. “Sure it’s gotta be slowing us down.”

“Do I hear a mutiny forming behind me?” Hook called over his shoulder, eyeing Rumpelstiltskin as he stepped around him to move in line with his men. The two pirates froze under his scrutiny and Cookson’s lips parted dumbly.

“No Capt’n,” Jukes fumbled over his words, shoving Cookson away from him so as not to be seen as an accomplice should the Captain ignore their innocence. “We was just commenting on how tough the walk must be for the ladies.”

The comment caught all of their attention and Hook looked up, meeting Emma’s eye. He questioned silently and she shrugged, clearly unhindered by the comment or it’s implication.

“I’m fine.” Snow offered with a smirk.

“Right,” Hook chuckled, “They seem okay. Regina?”

As if on cue, Regina turned at her name and the sharp heel of her boot got caught under a rock, twisting her ankle awkwardly. She let out a loud shriek, starting to tumble but Hook quickly leapt for her, catching her around the waist before she hit the ground.

“Perhaps we should do something about those heels, love.” Hook smirked and Regina rolled her eyes, irritated but she nodded absently, refusing to acknowledge how she still gripped his arm even though he’d already righted her and she was standing on her own two feet.

With a wave of her hand, Regina’s feet were suddenly surrounded in a deep purple cloud, twisting around her frame and startling the pirates. Each of them staggering back in fear before the cloud cleared to reveal her boots, brand new, without the dangerous heel. The action dropped her height a good few inches, but her feet instantly felt the relief.

“H-How did she?” Jukes stuttered, flabbergasted.

“None of your business, men, lets keep moving.” The pirates continued to stare at her, even as she walked on ahead of them. Rumple smiled wickedly at them before he turned, his eyes alight with mischief.

A loud cry rang out up front, halting the line that had been weaving through the dense jungle. “David!” Snow screamed and they all dashed into the clearing where David had tripped into a pit of quicksand. 

“Well that’s inconvenient.” Rumple muttered and Emma glared at him.

“Help him.” She demanded and Rumple reared up, staring at her in disbelief. 

Regina paid them no mind, having wandered to the other side of the clearing in the commotion, because out of the corner of her eye, she’d seen a splash of red amongst the low foliage.

“What do you want me to do, dearie? Hold out my cane for him?” Rumple mused and Emma growled.

“Don’t fight it, mate,” Hook called out. “You’ll only sink faster.” David didn’t answer, but he nodded his head in acknowledgement.

Regina pushed a thick fern aside, ducking under a tree branch as she apprehensively moved closer to what she thought she’d seen. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, the fear overcoming her as she realised what it was she could see through the leaves. She dashed for it, stumbling through the tall grasses and ferns, clutching for the small grey and red scarf that, to her relief, was hanging over a branch and not her dead son.

“Killian!” She screamed, shuddering at her fear and the use of the man’s first name. She’d not been able to say it until just that moment. She hadn’t been able to embrace that intimacy or acknowledge how important he was until the second she realised she needed him. “KILLIAN!” She screamed again.

The whole group looked up at the sound of her strangled cry. 

Shoving past his men, Hook nearly knocked Emma down in his haste to find Regina. She was all the way on the other side of the clearing, dropped to her knees on the jungle floor with tears streaming down her face.

“What is it, love?” 

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. He saw the scarf clutched in her hand against her chest and, following the line of her arm to where she reached out, he could see the small sculpture she touched with reverent fingers.

“Oh that clever boy.” Hook muttered, reaching down to clutch Regina’s shoulders. She stood quickly, turning and falling against his chest, body shaking with worry.

“You know this island,” Regina stated, peeking through Hook’s arm. “Where is he sending us?” She was unwilling to leave his embrace or release Henry’s scarf from her clutches.

“The mouth of Crocodile Creek, love.” He ran his fingers over her hair, soothing her. “Your boy is a smart lad.”

“We have to go.” She suddenly stood straight, pulling herself out of his arms, and wiping the tears from her face as she looked him in the eye. The look between them lasted no longer than a moment before Regina straightened her spine, her cheeks suddenly dry of all tears, before she brushed past him with her chin held high.

“What is it?” Emma questioned, stepping up behind Hook as Regina walked away. She glanced down at the message Henry had left them before watching Regina’s retreating back. Her eyes met Hook’s for a moment and he could see there, such a similar look to Regina’s; before she dashed after the Queen. “Regina, wait!” She called, but the woman made her way through the undergrowth with a determined stride, unable to look back for fear anyone behind her, save Killian, would see the tears she tried to hide.

“Regina, we’re in a bit of a bind at the moment.” Emma gestured to where Snow White was attempting to use her body as a raft in order to reach her husband, with a bewildered set of Pirates weighing her feet down; all of them slowly sinking in the quicksand. 

Regina rolled her eyes.

The small smirk on Rumpelstiltskin’s face caused Regina to groan. “We don’t have time for this.” She muttered as she shoulder-barged the Imp, making her way past the group, all of them attempting to save the sinking Prince. Cecco, one of Killian’s men, had lost his footing and stumbled into the sand along with David. One of his arms was completely buried and having fallen in at an odd angle, David was struggling to aid the man in keeping his face above the sand.

With a flick of her wrist, Regina thrust David, Cecco and Snow into the air; raised high above her head they writhed and squirmed, their voices squeaking with fear as they clawed for purchase. With another twist of her wrist - as if she were absently swatting a fly - they were dropped to the ground, falling with an unceremonious thud on the jungle floor.

“Now can we get back to finding my son?” Regina hissed, looking back over her shoulder at the rest of their stunned group before turning and striding away.

The pirates looked on in horror as she stomped past them. Emma was slacked-jawed at the simplicity of the movement as she pulled each of her parents to their feet and both Hook and Rumple, ironically, shared a very similar look of pride. Though for entirely different reasons.

**

Henry startled when a large boot slammed down on the wet sand he’d managed to pile up in front of him. A low, maniacal cackle sounded as he twisted his head, looking up at the boy with the dark hood and the frightening eyes.

“Are you leaving breadcrumbs for your mommy?” He mocked, twisting his body at an awkward angle to lean down and look Henry in the eye. His head was tilted to the side, making his countenance even more frightening for the young boy, who shuffled back from him in fear.

“N-no.” He stuttered, dusting the sand from his hands.

“How many of these little markers have you laid?” He inched closer to Henry, now having drawn the attention of the other Lost Ones, who crowded around, smiling broad yellow, gap-toothed smiles that turned Henry’s stomach.

“I-I haven’t...”

Suddenly his long, dirty fingers were wrapped around Henry’s collar and he was being reefed to his feet. “It doesn’t matter,” He smirked at Henry’s fearful expression, laughing gently as Henry quivered but held his jaw tight. “They’re not going to know where we’re going next.”

“What do you want with me?” Henry’s voice shook only slightly.

“Nothing.” The boy answered. “But Peter Pan wants your magic, and your body.”

Henry scoffed. “I don’t have magic.”

The tall boy gripped his jaw suddenly, so tight Henry nearly bit his tongue. “Oh but you do,” He hissed in his face, so close Henry could feel the warmth of his horrid breath on his cheeks. “You have more magic than you know. And Peter knows exactly how to get it from you.”

With a rough shove, he tossed Henry over to where the Lost Ones had Greg and Tamara bound and gagged. He tripped into one of the shorter boys, feeling his heart dropped into his stomach as he was jostled around before landing in a heap beside his kidnappers. 

“Now,” Their captor muttered as he gripped a small handful of the sand Henry had wetted. “How about a little mis-direction.” He gave Henry a wink as he started to re-sculpt Henry’s message as the boy wriggled and fought against his bonds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Be Continued.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is slightly shorter, but the action is starting to pick up with new characters coming into the fray. Enjoy.

The group came to a stop by the creek’s edge. The sun was high above them, breaking a sweat across each of their brows. Regina stepped up to the steep cliff, the toes of her boots tapping against the rock that jutted out across the terrifying facade of Crocodile Creek as she leaned, ever so slightly, to take a peek.

It was oddly named, for what lay before them was a deep chasm at the base of a frothing waterfall. The creek ran down below, but even that was a tumult of wild rapids, foaming white as they hit the razor-sharp rocks.

“Crocodile Creek?” Snow questioned, taking a seat beside her daughter on a large rock underneath a low-hanging tree. The pirates lazed about; Cecco and Cookson lapping up the sun as Jukes passed around canteens. Rumple arrived slightly later than the rest, his cane one step before him as he dropped down to sit on a rock beside Prince Charming.

“The creek runs down below,” Hook stated, knocking the sides of his coat back as he took a seat on a fallen log, his eyes drifting to the woman that stood on the high rock by the cliff’s sharp edge, the sun illuminating her figure in a sharp silhouette. “named for the rock formation on which the Queen now stands.”

Regina’s lips quirked in a small smile as she met his eye and Hook’s eyes glowed with mirth, the sun hitting those baby blues in just the right light that took Regina’s breath; if only for a moment.

She looked away with a gentle blush to her cheeks, ignoring the look of her step-daughter as Snow watched the exchange with curious eyes. 

“Does anyone have any food?” Emma questioned, flopping back on the rock in mock-exhaustion, running her fingers through her hair to pull it out of her eyes. She’d left her coat back on the ship, which left her in only a thin, tattered beige sweater that hung off one shoulder. The sunburn could already be seen, crawling across her neck.

“Here,” Regina waved her hand; a small puff of purple smoke circled her palm before a bundle of dates and nuts appeared. She dropped them into the woman’s hand, who looked up at her with wide, surprised eyes.

“Thanks.” Emma muttered, unable to form more coherent words because it wasn’t like Regina to so selflessly hand her anything without a cost. She watched, mouth agape, as the woman passed around the same to the others, dropping small handfuls into each of their hands. The pirates dived for her, scrambling over each other to be served first, but Hook grabbed each by the shoulder and shoved them back, forcing them to wait their turn.

Rumple stood up then, touching the ends of the almost empty canteens, eliciting a faint blue glow from them before all returned to normal.

“What did you do to that?” David questioned, more wary of the close-lipped Imp than of Regina’s gesture.

“Can’t have the family dying of dehydration, can we, Charming?” He smirked, taking his seat again as Snow picked up one of the canteens.

“It’s full,” She grinned.

“It’s not poisoned, is it?” Regina smirked and Rumple narrowed his eyes at her, before crossing his hands over the head of his cane.

“Only yours, your Majesty.”

As if out of spite, Regina lifted one of the canteens and bit the cork out with her teeth, spitting it toward her mentor’s designer leather shoes with laughter in her eyes.

“Hey Captain,” Cecco broke the stalemate, speaking with a date masticating noisily in his mouth. “So how’s it work?”

“What, Cec?” Hook popped a few almonds into his mouth, smirking at the woman standing a few feet behind his shipmate, in the clear path between two large boulders.

“You know, with the ladies.” He gestured toward Regina, who’s eyes had widened to saucers. Slowly, she crossed her arms over her chest, her back going rigid as the pirates chuckled. “Cookson said he saw the lady this morning Capt’n,” He studied her closely, unaware of his Captain’s growing aggravation as he blundered on.

“She had nary a scratch on her Capt’n and trust me,” Cookson looked Regina up and down, taking over from Cecco, an action that caused her posture to stiffen even more. She tightened her shoulders, turning her back to him slightly as her cheeks turned crimson. “There was a lot of her to see.”

“Yeah,” Cecco chimed back in, never having been known for his tact. “What do you do with that hook? You put a cork on it or something?”

Emma couldn’t help but laugh, holding a hand over her mouth as her mother nudged her shoulder, having her own difficulty ignoring the humour of the situation, or Regina’s clear discomfort. Magic formed in the palm of Regina’s hand, the anger on her face evident and Emma quickly jumped to her feet.

“Hey, Regina, they’re just joking.” She attempted to placate her but the fireball that grew in the palm of the Queen’s hand, heated the air between them, causing Emma to step back. Hook saw an opening and took it, grabbing Cecco by the shoulder and wrapping his knuckles across the pirate’s already disfigured face. The pirate wasn’t aware of it, but his Captain had saved his life.

“Ow! Capt’n!” He shrieked, holding his nose. “I think you broke my nose.”

“Good.” He snapped. “Perhaps then you’ll remember to consider a lady’s privacy before you crack jokes like that.”

“Come on, Capt’n, you’ve always loved that one.”

Regina met Hook’s eye over Cecco’s head, her irritation clear in her eyes as the Captain sheepishly averted his gaze. “That doesn’t matter!” He boomed, shoving Cookson’s shoulder with near as much force as he’d hit Cecco. The two of them huddled together, as pathetic as each other as Cecco held his bleeding nose and Cookson cradled his bruised shoulder.

“Look!” David called, stumbling up from his seat on the rock towards a small clearing in the undergrowth. “Henry’s left another clue.” Emma shoved past the pirates, each of them coddling their bruised egos, shrivelling away from the Queen that glared at them as she followed behind Emma. Hook tried to gently grasp her elbow but Regina reefed her arm away, instead moving to inspect Henry’s clue as far from him as possible.

Hook punched Cookson in the stomach to expel his frustration and the pirate gasped for air, staggering back. He looked up at the captain with a bewildered expression, fighting to get his wind back. “What was that for?” He rasped and Hook pointed a finger accusingly in his face.

“That, was pre-emptive.” 

“What?” Cecco screwed up his nose, unsure of the word.

Hook pointed toward Regina, who stood apart from the group with her arms crossed over her chest and a worried crease to her brows as they inspected Henry’s artwork. “If she stays mad, there’ll be more where that came from.”

“But Capt’n?” They each whined but Hook held up a hand to silence them.  
“Where’s it pointing, Hook?” David asked, looking up at the Pirate Captain who had to shove his way through the group to get a good look. Regina was already cradling Henry’s jacket in her hands, hugging it to her chest as she pressed the collar to her nose. Hook noticed her eyes close for a brief moment, savoring the smell of her son before her eyelashes fluttered, fighting a tear.

“Well?” Emma pushed and he cleared his throat, looking down at the small sculpture built of mud and clay.

“It looks like Skull Rock,” He tilted his head, attempting to look at it from a different angle. “Not as inspired as his last handful of works, but fairly self-explanatory.”

“How long will it take to get there?” Snow questioned.

“A few hours.” He nodded, standing up straight. “The one beauty of Neverland is you can circle the whole island in less than a day.”

“Well, lets go then.” Emma straightened up, ushering her parents ahead of her as the group filed into a single line. Regina glanced at Hook before following close on David’s heels. The pirates ambled on behind her, blithely unaware of the tension they’d created, nor caring for the damage they may have done.

Rumple smirked at Hook when they were the only two left in the clearing, chuckling under his breath at the one-handed man whose anger bubbled well beneath the surface. “What a shame you’ve slighted our dear Queen,” He grinned. “And here you were, the only one she was actually beginning to trust.”

“It was just a joke, and it wasn’t mine,” Hook defended through gritted teeth. “She’ll come around.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Dearie.” Rumple tilted his head. “As you convince yourself she’s not prone to over reaction. With good reason.”

“Shut up.” Hook spat, shoving the imp aside as he stormed away, following the rest of the group. 

Rumple toed Henry’s small sculpture, touching the side of the skull with his shoe - once dark and polished italian leather was now tarnished from sea salt and grime - Hook was right, the sculpture was different and Rumple had a very strong inclination as to why. With the end of his cane he destroyed it, knocking the skull down in a single blow and banishing all trace of it with the sole of his shoe.

***

“The creek runs into the cave. It comes out the other side and spills into the ocean.” Hook explained as they hopped across the rocks, one by one, leading straight into the mouth of the cavernous rock shaped like a skull.

“So the only way through is the creek?” Snow questioned, using David’s hand for support.

“There’s no other passage through the rock, but the river. The passage leads into the caverns, but it disappears into the cliffs.”  
“So, if they’ve brought Henry here, they’ve got to still be here.” Emma surmised but all she got from Hook was a wary half-nod.

Hook waited patiently on the other side of the creek for Regina, holding his hand out to help her across. She stood with both feet planted on her rock for a moment, looking up at him before, reluctantly, she took the outstretched hand.

He used the moment as an excuse to pull her against him, wrapping his arm around her waist and pressing their bodies together. “I’m sorry, love.” He whispered, pressing a tender kiss to her cheekbone and Regina’s smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Can you forgive me?”

“Yes.” She breathed, looking straight into his eyes. “I don’t understand why, but I can.”

“Lucky me.” He winked, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips. A throat being cleared brought them back to the present and Regina let go, stepping away from the Captain even though he held onto her hand.

“Kind of you to let me pass.” Gold jested, pushing past the couple with a huff as Hook’s crew filed across behind him.

Snow watched the couple over her shoulder as David and Emma wandered up ahead, inching their way into the mouth of the cave. She could feel a warmth growing within her as she watched Regina’s eyes and the way she gripped the Captain’s arms with sure fingers. It reminded her so much of that night in the stables, the way Regina’s arms had held onto Daniel so tightly, how her small hands had gripped his jacket as if she’d lose him if she ever let go.

A pang of guilt struck her, watching Hook follow closely behind the woman that had raised her; the woman who had given her, her first glimpse of real, true love.

She licked her lips, averting her gaze as the pair followed them up the creek bed toward her and the darkness of the cave beyond.

“There’s open caverns inside,” Hook met Regina’s eye for a moment, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “We’ll have to follow the passage down.”

***

The group made their way deep into the dark passages below skull rock. The walls dripped with salt water and crystallised rock formations; stalactites gripping the colossal archways above as the winding, slippery tunnel narrowed and darkened, the deeper they got. Hook’s torch started to dim with the lack of oxygen so low in the rocks where the air was musty and smelled of the sea and the water dripping from the rocks made it difficult to keep a flame.

They could hear the sound of the ocean echoing through the cliffs like thunder clapping against the rocks.

Regina tugged on his hook, pulling his arm against her chest as she stepped up to him, before holding her finger to the flame. He gasped, trying to shove her back, but Regina just smiled as suddenly, the flames of all the torches erupted with new fervor.

“What a marvellous little trick.” 

Regina startled, falling back against Hook’s chest as he held her against him. The rest of the group stilled behind them as the added light of the torches filled the opening with a warm, orange glow, illuminating what stood before them. 

Blackbeard, standing stock-still in the centre of the cavern held a heavy, dark steel sword in one hand, pulling it from it’s sheath as pirates slowly surrounded them. Hook’s men attempted to flee at the back of the group, but more of Blackbeard’s men appeared from the shadows, encroaching on them like slowly melting molasses; their gait languid yet purposeful.

“What do you want?” Hook questioned, handing Regina the torch in order to reach for his cutlass. 

“I think, my dear boy, you’ve already come to realise what it is we want.”

“Enlighten me,” Hook growled, edging his body in front of Regina’s as his father glanced in her direction, those deep, black eyes bearing into her soul. 

“Do you have Henry? Did you have him all along?” Emma piped up, shoving past David and stepping down to stand with Regina.

“Oh, no,” Blackbeard laughed. “The boy isn’t here. He never was.”

“But the sculpture,” Snow frowned. “He led us here.”

“That boy is far from here by now.” His eyes set on his son’s. “I assure you.”

“Why have you lead us here, then?” David questioned, stumbling a little as the pirates behind him tousled with Blackbeard’s henchmen.

“We’re here for the Queen.”

“What?” Hook spluttered and Regina gasped, reaching for Hook’s elbow, gripping the leather of his jacket tightly.

“I wish it hadn’t come to this, my boy, I honestly do. But your girl here is valuable and you know I’m hard-pressed to pass up a decent trade off.”

“What could you possibly want with Regina?” Snow cried, clinging to David’s shirt as he pulled her in close.

“Not I,” Blackbeard had the audacity to look put out by the question. “For the good of all who reside in Neverland, the Shadow needs her.”

“I don’t understand.” David narrowed his eyes and Hook glanced up at him for a second, before looking back to his father. 

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Blackbeard snarled. “You’re not of this place. You’re not tied to it’s fate.”

“You take Regina, the more bleak your fate will become.” Hook growled, baring his teeth in anger as his cutlass left it’s sheath entirely, stretching out before him, the tip pointed toward his father’s nose.

“It’s a simple bargain,” Blackbeard shrugged, nonplussed by the weapon Hook hand drawn on him. “You hand me the Queen and this little family is free to continue the search for the boy. You refuse, and my men will kill you.”

“You’d kill your own son?” Snow gasped and Hook’s teeth ground together, his eyes never leaving his father’s.

“He’s tried before.”

“Aye,” Blackbeard smirked. “Alas, unsuccessful. Now, dear,” He beckoned Regina with his free hand. “Come along.”

“You’re not taking her.” Hook looped his hook through Regina’s pants, tugging her back to him as she tried to step away. Sheathing his sword, he freed up his hand to take a tight hold of her’s, refusing to let go.

“Killian,” She wove her fingers through his, looking into his eyes with a watery smile. “We won’t find Henry if we’re all dead.”

“Don’t do this.” He breathed and Regina touched his brow, following her fingers with her eyes as she ran them down the side of his face.

“I’ll be alright,” She kissed his lips softly; so light he barely felt the touch before she was leaning back again. “But I need you to find my son. Please, Killian.”

“Listen to the lady, my boy, we outnumber you five to one.” Blackbeard spoke sternly.

Hook’s eyes flamed. “You shut up!” He yelled, pointing a furious finger at his father. “No, love,” He gripped her hand again as she attempted to step away, his attention so quickly drawn back to Regina. “Don’t do it.”

“I’ll be alright.”

Regina managed to squirm out of his hold, stepping close enough for Blackbeard to grab her wrist and yank her towards him. Immediately he tossed her towards his men; Regina stumbled on loose rocks, the trickling water beneath her feet making it harder to find purchase as she fell against them.

Hook lunged, drawing his sword with a fury that reddened his face and burned his blood. “I’ll kill you!” He growled, diving for his father who simply took a step back as David’s broad arms closed around Hook’s chest from behind.

“Don’t.” David spoke quietly but firmly. Hook tried to shove him off but David held firm. “You can’t help her if you’re dead.”

Hook shook the prince off, rolling his shoulders as he took in a deep breath. David looked up at Snow, sharing a glance with her, then Emma before any of them noticed Hook take advantage of the silent moment. 

He swung his sword at the nearest pirate, all but tearing the man in half with the heavy blade before he spun on his heel, knocking another out and ripping his hook across a portly man’s stomach. David growled deep in his throat, rolling his eyes as he too pulled his sword, begrudgingly aiding the Captain.

Gold lit up the cavern with a fire-ball that flew from one side to the other, barely singeing the ends of Emma’s hair as Snow shoved her out of the way. The ball managed to take down three of the men before hitting the opposite wall, shaking the cavern, taking out two more pirates as a shard of rock fell from the ceiling.

“No!” Hook screamed, dashing through knee deep water as his father dragged Regina toward the rushing water that dipped down into the underground river. He tried to chase after them, but had the wind knocked out of him as a heavy club hit him square in the chest.

The last thing he saw of her, as he struggled to stand, was her taking a deep breath as his father dragged her under the water.

***

As soon as they were out of the caves, Hook dashed for the cliff’s edge, watching intently, with his heart pounding in his chest, as the Queen Anne’s Revenge sat anchored in the small bay. He should have known, he berated himself; he should have sensed a trap.

“What’s wrong with you?!” David boomed, shoving Hook’s shoulders as the rest of the group stumbled out into the light; dripping wet and covered in blood, grime and clumps of wet sand.

Hook shoved him back. “Tell me you’d not do the same! Tell me!”

“That’s not the point,” David breathed heavily. “You could have gotten us all killed, not just yourself!”

“Were you even thinking?” Emma scorned him, dashing towards him, her face inches from his and her eyes, alight with fury. “You could have destroyed any chance we had of finding my son.”

“Her son.” Hook spoke menacingly, the words hissed in a near whisper, aimed to hurt.

She poised her fist to punch him square in the jaw, but her father held her back.

“But seeing as you all hold the Queen in such a high regard, I don’t imagine any of you would be willing to help me go after her.” The group was silent, Emma shuffled from foot to foot, biting her lip as her mother patted her shoulder in an attempt to soothe her. Gold stood back, his eyes turned down to the ground and his hands rested calmly on the handle of his cane. Even his own men were silent, huddled together on the creek’s edge, shaking mud out of their boots.

“Fine,” He spat, turning for the trees.

“Wait, where are you going?” David dashed forward, trying to stop him but Hook shook off his hand.

“I’m going after her.”

Before David had a chance to stop him, Hook was running as fast as he could for the tree line. It had taken them a few hours to make the trek from Tortuga to Skull Rock, the better part of half a day and Hook was certain, if he could make it back to the docks and the Jolly Roger, he’d be able to catch the Queen Anne’s Revenge before it took Regina from him forever.

 

***

“Bind her hands.” Blackbeard ordered, making his way up the quarterdeck as they dragged Regina, dripping and sodden, up onto the ship. She glared at his back as the pirates overpowered her, twisting her arms behind her back to hold her in place as a man, covered in more hair than clothing, bound her hands with what looked like an old canvas oil rag.

She could immediately feel her power waning. Whatever spell the cloth was enchanted with, dimmed her magic to the point where she felt empty, deflated, devoid of life. Blackbeard turned, smirking down at her as she stopped squirming.

“Now you’re more manageable,” He smiled, a black, soulless smile that made Regina’s skin crawl. The pirates patted her down, taking their time; she swore she felt at least five of them check her waist, hips and thighs for weapons before one finally declared a discovery in her boot.

Regina jostled to get free, pulling at her bonds and the arms of the men holding her in place as the filigree dagger Hook had given her, was handed to an enraptured Blackbeard. “Oh my.” He swooned, running his fingers along the golden accents of the scabbard, touching his fingers to the tip and running them along the edge. “He really does care about you.”

Regina didn’t respond, staring down at her boots in an attempt to ignore him but Blackbeard stepped down from the quarterdeck stairs, each heavy boot making her flinch in the near silence as he stepped up to her. 

“Do you have any idea what this is, girl?” Regina ground her teeth at the moniker. She knew he’d have to be a fair few centuries older than her, with his son pushing his three-hundredth year, but _girl_? She flinched as he touched the tip of the scabbard to her jaw, forcing her to meet his eye.

“He said it belonged to a woman, someone he loved.”

Blackbeard grinned. “Aye, it did. And before that, it belonged to a woman that loved him.”

Regina frowned, unsure of what it meant as she watched Blackbeard caress the scabbard reverently, touching it as one would a lost love.

“She was from your world, you now.” Regina wasn’t certain, but she thought she could see tears in his eyes. “Not the world where you were born, no.” He breathed and Regina knew exactly what he meant. “The shadow brought her here.”

“What happened to her?”

He looked her straight in the eye. “She died, protecting that wretched boy.” He snapped, throwing his head back before he shouted. “Throw her in the brig!”

Whatever moment they’d shared, whatever humanity Blackbeard may have shown, was quashed with the sound of stomping feet and shouting pirates. She fought them, digging her heels in as they dragged her, kicking and screaming, toward the steps to the lower deck. Regina’s knees knocked on the wooden stairs, bruising her shins and twisting her shoulders as she struggled. She screamed, throwing her head back with her hair flying in her face, the harder she strained against them.

She landed in a puddle, the decks sodden with sea water as they threw her into a moss-covered cell, surrounded by iron gates, half immersed in stale water. She had to shuffle to right herself, sitting up in the shallow pool with her hands still bound behind her back. She had to blow a tuft of hair from her eyes with a huff but it had little effect as she sat, hair stuck to her face and clothes reeking of salt and brine as she shivered in the dark.

***

Hook ran as fast as he could. His skin burned in the sunlight, searing as his heavy boots pounded like thunder on the ground. He leapt over fallen trees, his coat flying out behind him as ferns and thin branches swatted him in the face. He pushed through the clearing where they’d not long ago sat, where Regina handed out dried fruit and nuts and the Crocodile had reluctantly handed him a full water-skin.

He thrashed through a babbling stream, water kicking up around him as he tripped and struggled through a drop in the creek-bed. On all fours he struggled up the bank, dirt and rubble kicking up in the air as he launched himself over a boulder.

***

“So what do we do now?” Emma huffed, crossing her arms over her chest in annoyance as they mulled around the open sand-bank in the mouth of the cave.

David and Snow shared a look, each as perplexed as the other before, as a group, they turned to Gold.

“Don’t look at me,” Gold tilted his head. “You just let your two best chances of finding that boy, slip through your fingers.”

“What are you talking about?” David grumbled, grabbing hold of Snow’s hand as she stepped up beside him.

“You want to know where Henry is? Follow the magic.” Emma stepped up toward her parents, closer to the imp as he spoke, her eyes furrowed in deep concentration as he spoke. “Regina is a powerful sorceress, but more than that, her power comes from the deepest, strongest form of magic.”

“What?” Emma huffed.

“Love, dearie.” He looked at her in annoyance. “Regina’s craved it, yearned for it, she even had it for a time.” He looked pointedly at Snow. “And more importantly, she lost it.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Snow shifted uncomfortably.

“Everything, dearie. Because wherever they’ve taken Regina, Henry is bound to be.”

“But what could they possibly want with her? With Henry?”

Gold growled in annoyance. “Have you not been listening?” He hissed. “Whatever they’re planning to do, they’re going to use Regina’s love for Henry to do it. Because if anyone’s love could topple worlds, it’s Regina’s. She’s done it before.”

“The curse.” Snow breathed and Gold nodded.

“Indeed.”

***

“Don’t be afraid.” A small voice startled Regina and she lifted her head from her knees. She could see her breath in a stream of light, blinded from the rest of the hold by solid darkness.

“Who’s there?” She questioned, sitting up on her knees, listening for movement.

“You’re his mother, aren’t you?”

Regina’s heart soared. “You know of Henry? You’ve seen him?” She squinted in the darkness. “Who are you?”

“I have seen him.” The small voice, similar to that of a child, echoed through the hold. “He has been here.”

“Where did they take him?”

“To the void between worlds, where magic is strongest.”

Regina fell back on her heels, listening to her own breathing as she blinked, hoping to catch any movement in the shadows.

“What are they going to do to him?” Her voice hitched with unshed tears.

“Peter wants to live forever but Neverland’s magic is failing. He needs the heart of a true believer.” The small voice paused and Regina’s heart stopped. “They’re going to use your love for him, your magic and his, to restore balance to magic in Neverland and stop time again.”  
“How do you know all this?”

A small glow started to grow on the far side of the room, illuminating ropes and open crates, unlit candles drenched in old wax and a large lantern, resting on an overturned rum barrel. The lantern seemed to have lit from nothing, filling the room in a warm glow that touched Regina right down to her bones. As the light continued to grow, Regina could see a small face appear in the light, staring at her with small glowing hands gripping the bars of the lantern.

“I know because I loved him once.”

“What is your name?” She questioned, shuffling toward the bars of her cell, attempting to get a closer look at the fairy.

“Tinkerbell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Be Continued.


	6. Chapter 6

“Do you have anyone coming for you?” Regina shivered as she felt a gentle pressure. Tinkerbell’s bare feet padded along her forearm, leaving a delicate track of glowing light that sparked and crackled against her skin. She’d been sitting with her head rested on her knees, watching the gentle lapping of the water against her toes from the only dry corner of her cell; listening to the creaking of the rotting wood and the sloshing of rum barrels that rolled with the rocking of the ship.

“How did you...?” Regina’s large brown eyes blinked in the glow of the fairy’s light as she rested herself on her arm, her small feet dangling over her wrist right beside where her ropes were still bound tight.

“You looked lonely.” Tinkerbell shrugged. “I can leave my cage if I wish, but don’t tell anyone.” She held a tiny finger to her lips and Regina blinked, surprised.

They stared at each other for a long moment, before Tinkerbell repeated her question. “So,” She sighed. “Is there anyone coming for you?”

“I don’t know.” Regina’s voice sounded small, even to her own ears; but the delicate tinkle of the fairy’s movements told Regina she had her attention.

“What do you mean?”

Regina sighed. “Maybe,” She breathed, shaking her head and looking away as her voice caught in her throat. “I don’t know.”

“You were a queen, weren’t you? That’s what the men on this ship said.”

“I was,” Regina ran her eyes over the shallow puddle before her, watching the cool water ripple and knowing that even though she couldn’t touch the water - with her hands still bound in rag and rope - she was never going to be completely dry in this place. “But the only one that might come for me, is too far away to make it.”

“What’s his name?” Tinkerbell pulled herself up to her knees, letting her glow light up Regina’s face so she could see the hint of a wistful smile behind a stray tear.

“Killian.” She whispered, looking up sharply when the fairy gasped. “What? You know him?”

“Killian Jones? The pirate lord?” The fairy’s eyes were wide with fear. “The son of that monster upstairs?”

Regina awkwardly scrambled to her knees as the fairy vaulted off her arm, zooming across the room in a sharp burst of light; she gripped the bars pleading with the fairy to meet her eye. “How do you know him?”

Tinkerbell sat on the edge of her broken rum barrel with her feet propped up on a pile of dried candle-wax. Her shoulders heaved and her wings fluttered as she let out a long breath. “We were children together, Killian and me,” She sighed deeply. “Peter too.”

“What happened?” 

The fairy whirled back around, her face bright red with fury as she dashed for Regina’s cell so fast she startled back, unable to catch herself before landing in the puddle in a heap. 

“He betrayed us!”

**

Hook shoved drunken pirates away from him as he forced his way through Tortuga. His face was flushed with heat from the run, his skin burning with the intensity of his haste. He pushed a drunken sailor that had clearly lost his way, over the side of the jetty as he tripped his way up the gangplank and suddenly, his ship burst into view.

“Those Mills women certainly know how to hide a thing.” He smirked, looking up at the mainmast with longing.

He scuffed along the deck; his boots heavy with the weight of his exhaustion, but he pulled himself straight, took a deep breath and kicked the boot of the crewman he’d left to guard the ship.

The man was portly and smelled like a pig trough; as ugly as the mud caked on his boots; but he was loyal and Hook could work with loyal.

“Wake up!” He barked, but all the man did was grumble and roll over, sucking his thumb into his mouth as his arms curled around a bundle of rope.

Hook reached for a rancid pail of sea water and dumped it over the man’s head, dousing him from head to toe.

“Wake up, Turk!” He barked again and the man leapt to his feet, shrieking at the temperature of the water, swinging out with his knife before he realised who his assailant was.

“Capt’n?” He questioned, squinting his eyes as water dripped from his thick eyebrows.

“It’s me,” Hook answered absently as he dropped the pail to the deck and headed for the helm. “We’re to set sail.”

“Now, Capt’n? But the crew?”

“Just us, Turk. We’ve no time to wait.”

“But boss,”

Hook cut him off, his calm exterior broken by a sudden intensity. “NOW TURK!”

“Yes boss.” The foul smelling pirate ran for the rope lines, not even bothering to loosen the knots, he leant over the side and cut the ship free with his knife.

“Good man.”

“May I ask where we’re going, Capt’n?”

Hook’s eyes set on the horizon as the ship turned toward sunset. He flipped his compass from his belt, letting the arm spin like mad for a moment before it gave him a clear heading; straight for the setting sun.

The compass didn’t point north, he’d learned that long ago. He’d won it at cards with a pirate lord who’s sanity had been burned away with rum. The man had draped his arm over his shoulders like a blanket, heavy with drink and the smell of putrid salt and he’d whispered in Killian’s ear that one day he’d need it.

“To war, Turk.” He spun the wheel with his whole body, his eyes alight with hope that he’d reach her in time. “We’re heading to war.”

Hook’s eyes seared the horizon and Turk swallowed, pressing his eyes closed as the Jolly Roger lived up to her reputation.

**

Regina watched the fairy from across the room. There was little she could do with her hands bound and her legs aching in the cold, stale water. Tinkerbell had her back to her, her shoulders heaving with what Regina could only assume were sobs. Her little wings moving up and down with each breath.

“How did he betray you?” She asked quietly; her voice small and reserved.

Tinkerbell hesitated, shrugging her shoulders before her equally as quiet, resigned voice answered with only the slightest touch of petulance. “He grew up.”

“That’s all?” Regina sputtered and the fairy suddenly whirled around, her face red with anger as she landed on the crossbar of Regina’s cell, gripping the rotted iron bars with her tiny, angry hand.

“We made a pact.” She spat. “Killian found me. My kind had left me because my wings were too small and I couldn’t fly.” A tear escaped her eye and Regina stared up at her intently, unable to look away from her face. “He gave me food to eat and somewhere warm to sleep and he led me to Peter. We promised we’d always be together,” There was a faraway look in her eye that made Regina’s water. She knew the feeling; she knew the pain of loss. “We didn’t need parents, we swore that too. We had each other and that was always going to be enough.”

“Then what happened?”

“Killian’s father came back for him.” Tinkerbell sighed, lowering herself down to sit on the crossbar. “I like to think he tried to resist him, we didn’t need parents after all. But when Killian started to forget how to fly, I knew.”

“He followed him on the tide and never returned.” Tinkerbell sobbed and Regina felt a pang in her heart.

“So Killian just abandoned you? I don’t think I believe that.”

“I couldn’t have gone with him,” The fairy hissed. “He promised to stay with me forever. And how could I leave Peter!” Tinkerbell looked down at her toes as her voice lowered. “But then Peter became so obsessed with magic; magic that would stop time so that we could stay children forever. That’s why he wants your son, that’s why he’s done all of this.” She breathed a heavy sigh. “Now I’m truly alone.”

“You could have gone with Killian.” 

“I loved Peter, I couldn’t leave him.”

“So you abandoned Killian then. You left your friend to the hands of his wretched father.”

Tinkerbell’s head shot up, her eyes burning red with fury but this time, she didn’t scream, her voice was quiet, barely controlled, rage. “How dare you.”

“His father didn’t ask him to go with him, his father didn’t give him a choice. And then he abandoned him when he was no longer of use to him.”

“How would you know?” Tinkerbell spat.

“He told me!” Regina shot back, with an equal amount of venom.

Tinkerbell studied the woman before her for a long time, her tiny legs swinging back and forth as she thought. Regina’s wrists were aching from being bound, her legs sore from being twisted on the cold floor.

When the fairy finally spoke again, her voice was much softer. “Peter said that Killian wanted to go; he said that he was never coming back.”

“And you've never suspected that Peter could have lied to you?" Regina sighed when Tinkerbell turned her eyes away. "You’ve seen him since, haven’t you? Always searching for something in Neverland he’s never been able to find?” Regina’s eyes bore into the little fairy. “It’s always the same isn’t it?” Tinkerbell blinked, turning her head back to meet her eye. “You’ve watched him from afar. He has a crew and a ship and a hook and you’re just a tiny fairy. But he’s searching for something, something in the trees, but you never let him see you, do you?”

Tears fell from Tinkerbell’s eyes. “Do you think...?” Her voice broke on the question and Regina smiled gently.

“I’ve come to love Killian; in spite of causing each other heartache and pain. He’s a broken man, but a good man, Tinkerbell; I know that’s why he’ll come for me. He promised that he would.”

“Well maybe he loves you enough to keep that promise.”

“It’s taken me a long time to believe it of anyone, but somehow I know he does.” Regina smiled wistfully, looking up at the fairy, her light dimmed with the sadness of her story. “If you go to him, if you lead him back to me, I think you’ll learn that he’s never stopped looking for you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Isn’t that the whole problem with Neverland?” Regina spat. “Children are forgetting how to believe.” Regina sighed deeply, twisting her wrists, trying to free her hands from the enchanted cloth, but they wouldn’t budge. “Your land is dying because you refuse to believe what you know to be true in your heart.”

“And what’s that?”

Regina smiled warmly. “You know what.”

Tinkerbell sprung from her perch, flying across the room for a moment, resting on the edge of a barrel with her eyes turned away from the cold, damp Queen. Regina rested the crown of her head against the bars, all but resigning herself to the gallows as the fairy pondered what she’d said. She couldn’t believe she was resting her fate on the shoulders of a hot-tempered fairy but as she rolled her head on her shoulders, turning her eyes to the small creature waging a war inside her own tiny head, she let out a long sigh.

“I don’t know what to do.” 

Regina smiled softly. “Help me.”

**

“How are we going to find Henry now?” Emma pondered petulantly, kicking a rock ahead of her as she walked, getting frustrated when it got lodged underneath a fallen branch. Hook’s crew had left them, making their own way back to Tortuga and the deep bottles of rum they’d been swimming in when Hook had gathered them up.

David looked to Snow for help, sharing a long suffering look with his wife before turning back to his daughter.

“We don’t know, Emma,” He breathed, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and tugging her into his side. “But we will find him. I promise.”

“But what about Regina? Shouldn’t someone have gone after her? Hook can’t do it alone.”

“I don’t think the pirate will let any harm befall the Queen, dearie.”

Emma spun around to meet Rumple’s eye. “How can you be so sure? He’s betrayed her before.”

Rumple tilted his head with a smirk. “Perhaps, and perhaps he will again. But that’s true love that sparked between them.” He shrugged his shoulders, hobbling past Emma and David as they stopped in their tracks.

“But Regina’s true love died.”

“As did Hook’s,” Rumple spun on his heel with a devilish smirk. “Or so we thought. There’s no law that says who’s love is true. Nor that true love can be felt only once in a lifetime. And I knew my wife quite well,” Rumple looked down at the ground with a nostalgic expression. “so well I almost pitied the pirate.”

“She didn’t love him?” Emma questioned and though Rumple’s answer was severed by Snow’s voice, he met her eyes for a moment and Emma knew.

“That’s a bit farfetched, don’t you think?” Snow pondered and Rumple scoffed. 

“Really dearie? Do you believe that of all of us, Regina is not the most deserving of love?”

“No.” Emma spat immediately, but when she saw her parent’s faces, looking between them quickly, her mouth fell open in surprise.

Snow’s lip curled, scrunching her nose as if she was disgusted with what she was about to say, but knew it had to be said. “She’s suffered,” She sighed. “Perhaps more than any other person that I know.”

“Don’t get me wrong, dearie, I’ll be the first to knock the Queen from her perch, but facts are facts and that woman’s entire existence has been for one thing.”

“Murder and destruction.” Emma nodded, looking for agreement but David winced, Snow looked to Rumple and Rumple shrugged his shoulders as he corrected her.

“Love.”

“Are you kidding? You’re kidding right?”

“You didn’t know her before, Emma.” Snow offered and Emma scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest but Snow pushed on. “I knew her when she was kind, before the world betrayed her. She had a pure heart, Emma.” Snow smiled, remembering the days with Regina that were honest, pure and lovely. “Perhaps the purest heart I’ve ever seen.”

“More than yours?”

“Yes.” Snow choked on the word, barely able to push it out for the raw honestly that weighed it down.

“I get that she’s got a good side, I can believe that. We’ve all seen it with Henry. But she created the curse, she destroyed all of your lives, she took me from you!”

“No,” Rumple’s calm voice stopped her short. “She didn’t.”

Snow’s eyes opened wide and David’s narrowed angrily. “What?”

“She cast the curse, but she didn’t create it. I needed to get to a land without magic, I needed to find my son.” Rumple slowly lowered himself to sit on a large rock, looking up at them. “But the curse I created required one ingredient that I didn’t possess.”

“What’s that?” Snow questioned.

“Love.” He shrugged. “I kept the curse for two hundred years, knowing Regina would one day be born. And I needed her to wield it.”

"What, so you told her to cast it and she just did?" Emma rolled her eyes. "I don't think so."

Rumple rested his hands on the head of his cane as he made himself as comfortable as possible, perched on the large rock before them. 

"Regina could not simply be told what to do, she’d have never done it. She had to be made to think it was what she wanted. Her mother was a great help, even if she didn’t know it." 

"You orchestrated everything." Realization dawned on Snow, her mouth falling open in shock and disgust. "When did it start? Did you get Cora to kill Daniel?"

Rumple chuckled. "Oh no, dearie. Cora is as unflappable as her daughter. She did that on her own."

"So when?"

"Regina has been mine since long before she was born."

"What do you mean, your's?" David screwed his nose in disgust. 

"Her mother broke her deal and Regina was the price. A puppet to do my bidding."

"You really are evil, aren't you?" Emma breathed.  
   
"It depends on your definition. Cora and I made a deal, she broke it and I took what was mine. It's simple."

"It's Regina's life, her sanity!" Snow cried.

"And she has lived and done as she pleased."

"She's done exactly what you've wanted of her. You taught her, you manipulated her. You took that spark of pain and you dug it into her heart like a shard of ice. You made her what she is. You made her a monster!"

"I did what was needed to find my son."

"And what about her's?" David stepped up to rumple, looking down at him and speaking through gritted teeth. "Do you really care for him or is he just a puppet too?"

"Do you think I'm telling you all of this because its of benefit to me?" Rumple spat. "I'm proving a point. We became family the moment that boy was born."

"So what, you're making amends?" Emma laughed and Rumple glared at her.

"I'm trying to tell you; I struck a new deal with Cora."

"What deal?"

"My son for her daughter. I got Baelfire back."

“So Regina is free?” Snow questioned, hopeful.

"Just like that?" Emma added, confused.

"I wish it were that simple, but my son is now lost to me once more."

"That's why you wouldn't help her, you bastard." David hissed and Rumple merely smirked.

"One thing can never be said of the Queen," they all looked at him in curiosity. "That she is not useful."

“Look!” Emma suddenly shouted, dashing to a point over Rumple’s shoulder that had them all spinning on the spot. It was a small overgrown trail that lead downhill towards a small beach. On closer inspection she could see the haphazard boot-prints of at least two soldiers and on the side of the track, stuck on the thin branch of a dried shrub, was a familiar piece of cloth.

“I know this!” Emma gasped, lifting it to her nose as she turned to show her parents, meeting Rumple’s eye as he stepped up to her, reaching out for the cloth and touching it gently between his fingers. “Could it be?” She questioned.

“I don’t know.” Rumple stammered, for once at a loss for words.

 

**

 

Neal woke with a start, gasping as he tried to sit up. Sweat caked his brow, a thick sheen that smothered him as he choked for fresh air. It was like breathing in high altitude, struggling against the small hands he was too weak to fight.

“You’re alright, you’re safe.”

He blinked his eyes in the dim twilight, twitching as the light reflected off polished metal; he looked up at his caregiver. All he could see was dark-rimmed eyes and the sharp brass edges of a soldier’s helmet.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in a safe place, we cleaned your wound and your fever’s broken.”

He studied the eyes that leaned over him until his own managed to clear. He realized that the small, thin beams of light were coming from a hole no larger than a crack in the wall, chipped away with some kind of tool. It was no window and by the looks of the thin wisps of grass growing over the edge, they were underground.

“Who are you?” He narrowed his eyes, wincing as he pulled on his wound. Those small, strong hands that had held him firm, soothed the pull on tender flesh with gentle pressure.

“My friends and I found you washed up on the beach.”

He watched, curious, as an arm adorned in rich leather raised to the point of the helmet, pulling it with reluctance and nervous fingers. Long tendrils of chestnut hair fell free of the cool metal, tumbling over narrow shoulders and framing a pretty face.

“My name is Mulan.”

“You’re a woman.” He stated. It brought a smile to her face.

“Indeed, I am. Does that surprise you?”

His lips twitched into a faint smile. “No.”

“You’re awake!” A voice exclaimed from behind her and he watched her head spin around before he could see two more people enter the tiny, burrowed out room framed by the roots of a tree. The woman was beautiful in a long lilac gown unsuited to burrowed out hovels and the man, dressed in soldiers armour, wore the crest of a man who didn’t often see battle.

“These are my friends, Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip.” Mulan gestured and Neal nodded slowly, studying each of their faces.

“We were worried there, for a minute.” The pretty princess formed a shaky smile.

“How long was I out?”

“Two days,” Phillip frowned and he nodded, taking in the information. “It was touch and go there for the first.”

“And how did I get here?”

“You don’t remember?” Mulan questioned, resting her hand on his forearm.

“I remember Tamara shot me and I fell...” His eyes wandered; the memory of Emma’s face as she cried, screaming over the growl of the portal, holding fast to his hand. The image haunted him, flying back to him without permission, resting on his heart and pressing down with unwanted pressure. “Emma tried to hold onto me but it was going to suck us both in, so I let her go.”

“Emma?” Mulan breathed the name, looking up towards her companions. Neal frowned, confused.

“You know her? How?” He pressed and Mulan turned back to meet his eye.

“I believe so,” She glanced up at her friends before turning back again. “We hadn’t heard if they made it back safe. Once they went through the portal it closed and Aurora never saw either of them again in her dreams.”

“You saw Emma in your dreams?” He turned his eyes to the princess but she frowned, shaking her head.

“No, I saw her mother Snow and her son, Henry.”

Neal’s eyes wandered to a spot on the floor as he thought of Henry and he thought of Emma. “She’s alive,” He breathed. “She tried to save me.”

“You love her?”

Meeting the other man’s eye, Neal’s lips twitched in a conspiratorial smile. “Obvious, huh?”

“Quite.” Phillip grinned, his eyes flicking to Aurora’s face.

“Thank you for saving me.” He smiled, looking up into each of their faces. “But where are we?”

“This is Neverland.” Phillip breathed and Neal’s eyes widened.

To be continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I plan to post the final chapter tonight. So look out for it.


	7. Chapter 7

“Are you comfortable down here, your majesty?” The deep, gravelly voice of her captor startled Regina but she did her best not to show it. He stepped out of the shadows; his long beard dripping down his front and his hat so drenched the long black feather had fallen limp. “Apologies for the turbulence.” He smirked. “There’s a storm outside.”

Regina scowled, her teeth grinding together as the ship pitched and a rum barrel tipped over and rolled across the deck. Blackbeard wasn’t bothered by the waves, so in tune with his ship that every pitch and dive could be countered with a broad stance and a menacing scowl.

“You’ll pay for this.”

“To whom, your majesty?” He strolled before her, ignoring the clapping of thunder. “My son?” He laughed. “That boy couldn’t find his ass with both hands, my dear. You’ve backed the wrong pirate.”

“You have so little faith in your own son?” She stared up at him. “What happened between you? What made you like this?”

Blackbeard studied her closely, pulling a stool across the rocking floor to sit just in front of the bars. He sat there in silence for a moment, watching her with a hand in his beard as he scratched at his chin.

“Her name was Esmeralda,” He stared at a spot just shy of her toes. “Her people, gypsies, had been driven from the catacombs of Paris and she stowed away on board my ship.” Regina could almost see a smile grace his lips, were it not for the beard and the perpetual scowl.

“I asked her if she was afraid because she’d hidden away on a pirate ship.” He chuckled lightly and Regina’s eyes widened at the sound. “She said they’d have never thought to look for her there and so it was the safest place she could be.”

“You fell in love with her.”

He looked her in the eye with those icy blues, so like Killian’s. “She lived on my ship with a tambourine and a goat that refused to be anyone’s dinner. She entertained my men and she lived here with me, in Neverland, for two hundred years.”

“She was Killian’s mother?”

He nodded slowly. “When we met, I had been searching for the fountain of youth; instead we found a portal to Neverland and she came with me.”

“What does this have to do with how you treat Killian now? If she loved him, if you loved each other. Why do you insist on torturing your son?”

“My son,” He almost spat the word. “Was a curious child; we’d been searching a downed ship for gold, a small adventure for the boy that wasn’t dangerous, as she had requested. But he came across an amulet. When he touched it it left a mark on his hand. A wraith came for him the next night.”

Regina’s breath hitched and she pulled her hands tighter together, clenching her palms.

“You know of this wraith?”

“Rumpelstiltskin sent it for me.”

“Well then since you live, you know it can change paths.” She nodded. “Esmeralda took the amulet from Killian, pressed it to her own hand and took his place. That boy is the reason she’s gone.”

Regina’s eyes were wide. “And you blame him?”

“It was his fault.”

“He was a boy.” She snarled. “All he was guilty of was that he had a mother who loved him; a mother who was willing to give her life for him. And you blame him.”

“I have lived three hundred years without her.” He choked on the words and Regina took a deep breath.

“And you could have spent that time, loving her son; your son.”

Blackbeard’s eyes blazed. “How dare you!”

“How dare I?” She spat. “I know what it’s like to lose that love. To have your child stop loving you. You had a chance, to love the last thing left of her and you squandered it.”

“You have no idea how hard it is.”

“Don’t I?” Regina scoffed. “I spend each and every day unable to stop loving the grandchild of my enemy, because he has been mine since birth and after ten years they decide they want him back so they took him from me. Now you’ve taken him from me and for what? So you can live forever? Forever without her, without Killian; is that what you really want?”

“That’s not the point.”

“It’s precisely the point. You don’t even know what you’re fighting for, do you?” Regina laughed maniacally, letting the Evil Queen slip past her lips for just a moment, letting the fire of magic burn in her eyes as she looked up at him. “You’re waging a war for a child who wants to live forever at the expense of your own.”

Blackbeard leapt up from the stool, grabbed the iron bars and quickly unlatched them. He swung the heavy gate open and stormed into her cell, kicking up the rank water with his heavy boot. 

He grabbed a hold of her arm, twisting it awkwardly as he pulled her to her feet. Regina refused to cry out, instead clenching her teeth and biting down on her lip as he dragged her from the hold, stumbling them both up the stairs, where Regina’s heels caught just enough to jar her ankle before they stepped out into the pelting rain.

The storm was raging so strongly the rain was almost indistinguishable from the waves crashing against the ship; the only difference being the taste of salt that sprayed across her lips. Regina’s fear and anger boiled together as she was tossed across the deck to the arms of an awaiting pirate, this grimy hands gripping her shoulders as he turned her to face the Captain.

She didn’t have the strength to shake him off.

“Bring him!” Blackbeard shouted over his shoulder and Regina’s eyes widened as she saw a latch open in the floor a few feet away from where they’d emerged. A small boy burst forward, shooting out and up into the sky.

“Peter Pan,” Blackbeard stated with a madness in his eyes, gesturing up to the boy that circled the skies and crowed, the long tendrils of Blackbeard’s scraggly hair slapping him across the face with each gust of wind and errant wave. The seas roiled more and Regina could feel the warmth behind her eyes growing with her anger as another head appeared, pushed forward by two burly pirates.

“Henry!” She gasped, struggling at her bonds, desperate to break free and run to him. “Henry, can you hear me!?” She shouted over the roaring of the sea and Henry’s eyes tipped towards her suddenly, widening upon sight of her.

“MOM!” He screamed, struggling for all he was worth against the thick arms that held him firm.

“It’s alright Henry, everything’s going to be alright, I won’t leave you alone!”

“Mom, are you hurt? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, sweetheart, did they hurt you?”

“No, Greg and Tamara are dead though.” Regina’s heart wept a moment for Owen, the little boy who had awakened her heart. But for the man that had tortured her and captured her son, the news only strengthened her resolve.

“I hate to break up this precious reunion,” Blackbeard smirked. “But there’s work to be done here. String him up.”

The pirates immediately dragged Henry to the mainmast, strapping him down with ropes as Regina saw Peter perch himself on the bannister of the quarterdeck stairs. “I remember you,” Pan pointed at her, twisting his index finger as though in accusation. “You’ve been here before.”

“No I haven’t.”

“You have.”

“I don’t believe so.”

“You were just a child,” He smirked. “You wept for your father into the lace of your nightgown, I remember you.”

Regina studied the floor for a moment, staring ahead of her as a brief image came to mind. She had thought that Neverland was familiar; it was the smell in the air, the warmth of the sun, the same crackle of magic. Neverland was where a young boy with dark hair and blue eyes had hidden her in a tree far from shore, away from the mermaids who’d wanted to drag her under the sea and keep her magic for their king. She’d thought it had only been a dream.

Suddenly, she remembered Triton’s words from the council chambers; she knew they’d try to take her. This had nothing to do with Henry, not really; and this had all happened before.

Regina felt the anger bubble up in side of her; tears were streaming down Henry’s face as he watched her with fear in his eyes. Her shoulders started to shake and the ship suddenly started to crack and bow. She pulled her hands out to her side, revealing to a baffled Blackbeard that she had been unbound for some time. Tossing her head to the sky, she thanked Tinkerbell silently before the magic swirling within her burst forward.

The ship rocked, tossing violently as the sea churned. A great trident rose from the water, followed closely behind by the massive body of King Triton, scowling down at them. Regina’s eyes flashed purple, twisting and turning like the waves as she felt her body change.

“I knew you’d return.” Triton’s mighty voice boomed and Regina’s maniacal laugh vibrated through the waters, knocking the pirates from their feet as the deck of the ship split in two, under her weight. Tentacles spread out, dropping across the deck and knocking the pirates overboard. Blackbeard clung to the mainmast, holding on to Henry’s ropes for dear life as the boy turned his eyes up to his mother. 

She wrapped a protection spell around him, keeping him afloat as her great rolling body waded out to meet the King of the Sea.

“The Kraken has come.” Blackbeard murmured and Henry turned to him, eyes wide. “She was just stories, told by the pirates to ward men from the sea.”

“She’s my mom.”

“Yeah, boy, and she’s waged this war before.” Henry met the eyes of the frightened pirate.

**

Hook gripped the wheel desperately, holding on tight as the waves thrashed the side of his ship. It almost tipped, the mast touching the surface of the water before it was thrown back to standing upon the tumultuous waves again.

Turk clung to the ropes, swinging out before falling back to the deck with a thud, shaking his head to clear it.

“It can’t be far!” Hook shouted and Turk nodded up to him, having faith in his captain but not in the storm. Suddenly, a bright light appeared ahead of them, glowing as it grew from the distance, brighter and brighter until Hook could make out her features through the rain.

“Tink!” He gasped as she collided with his cheek, grabbing a hold of his ear and swinging to his shoulder, clinging fast the the wet tangle of hair at the nape of his neck. Her wings were weighed down with the heavy rain, no longer able to lift her into the air so she dropped to his shoulder and clung to his collar for dear life.

“What happened to you?” Hook gasped.

“It’s a long story,” She sighed, tapping his neck kindly as she jingled with every movement. “But now is not the time.”

“What’s happened? This storm,” He breathed, looking out to the roaring horizon. “This isn’t natural.”

“It’s Regina,” Tinkerbell shouted over the growl of the thunder. “You have to help her.”

“What have they done to her?” Hook roared, his anger as terrifying as the storm that shook them and Tinkerbell trembled, seeing first hand, her dear friend’s love for Regina.

“I don’t know, but the storm started when I unbound her ropes. Your father had set some kind of magic on the cloth that held her hands. But she’s free now, and I fear the storm’s strength.”

“How far?”

“You’re close, just over the next swell.”

“I’m coming, Regina.” Hook muttered to himself and Tinkerbell watched the side of his face with a gentle half smile. She had missed him. All those years of him and Peter at each other’s throats and she’d missed them both. She knew there was no saving Peter, not now, but there was still a chance to save Killian. All they had to do was get to Regina.

**

“It was never about my son, was it?” Regina boomed, her thunderous movements shaking the pirates down to their bones. The ones that still clung to the broken parts of the ship, turned their eyes away in fear and those that had fallen into the waves, shouted and screamed for help.

“Oh it was,” Triton turned his trident towards her, gathering the clouds above them and dragging down a bolt of lightening. “it was a trap. Your son has magic, true enough. Better yet, he has the power of belief, which so many children in this world have lost.”

“But why Henry?” She growled, eyeing the trident aglow with the heat of the lightening bolt.

“You know why.”

“Me,” She breathed, her strong tentacles dropping into the water in a brief moment of stillness as she realized. “You wanted to lure me here, to finish what you started.”

“You were the truest believer Neverland had ever seen. You brought magic to this place, you fostered it. Your presence made it grow. Look at you now, the lady of the sea.” Triton sighed, gesturing to the form she’d now taken; the beast every man of the sea feared. “You could be powerful here. So can your son.”

“You won’t win this.”

“Regina!” A voice startled them. Regina looked down to see, with a smile in her eye, that the Jolly Roger had made it. With Hook at the helm, she smiled when she noticed the tiny little light perched on his shoulder.

“Killian look out!” She screamed, the depth of her voice strengthened by the advance in her size. The sea rumbled with the sound, shaking the water and knocking Hook off course as Triton angled his trident at the ship.

The bolt missed by a hair, knocking the ship on it’s side before one of Regina’s tentacles rose up and wrapped around it’s base, setting it back on the surface. At the same time, she knocked Triton aside with another, pushing him down below the water as she shouted to Hook. “Get Henry! He’s tied to the mast!” 

Hook looked over, seeing the ball of white light that encased her son, tied to the mast and his father, who was holding on to stop himself sinking in the sea.

**

“Do you have any way to track him?” Emma asked Gold as they trudged through the forest. The rain came down in a think blanket, drenching them all to the bone; thankfully the wind had left them at the shore.

“Even if I could, the magic in this storm would counter any measure I took.”

“Magic storm?” David threw over his shoulder and Rumple nodded.

“This isn’t just any storm, it’s powerful and unnatural. I’d say it’s even more treacherous out at it’s centre.”

“You mean, someone is making it storm?” Emma scoffed.

“With all you’ve done and seen, dearie, and you doubt it?”

“No, it’s just, who is that powerful?”

“It’s remarkable what a mother is capable of, when her child is in danger.”

“Regina?” Snow choked. “Regina is making this?”

Gold nodded slowly. “I believe so, yes.”

“I hope Hook finds her in time.” Snow muttered, walking on ahead of them with her eyes cast down. David shared a look with Emma before pressing his palm between his wife’s shoulder blades and following along behind her.

“Do you know this future?” Emma looked, for the first time, like she needed Rumple’s reassurance.

“I don’t.” He shook his head. “Regina’s path became blurry to me several years ago. Power like that cannot be mapped with a parlor trick.”

“So you don’t know if she’ll make it through this.”

“I know that she has before, dearie. I believe with Regina, that’s all we really need.” Emma nodded, clutching the thin strip of fabric to her chest as she followed after her parents, watching the ground as she stepped away from him. 

Rumple looked back over his shoulder, feeling the heat of Regina’s magic all the way back from the source of the storm and he could feel the raw expulsion of power rumbling right down to his bones. “Come on, dearie,” He muttered. “You can win, if you focus.”

**

The ocean rocked with the force of Regina, battling with all her strength against Triton. The waves crashed up, like tidal waves crashing against their bodies and knocking the tiny Jolly Roger this way and that. Hook, with a little help from Regina’s magic, managed to make his way over to where Henry was still tied to the mast, barely keeping afloat on the last piece of the Queen Anne’s Revenge still above water.

“Hook!” He shouted for him and Killian’s lips spread in a thin smile, grateful the boy was happy to see him.

“I’m coming, lad, just hang on.”

“Hold that thought, boy,” Blackbeard’s voice caught Hook off-guard as he leapt from his perch gripping the mast and landed with a thud; heavy boots against the ship’s rolling deck. “You’ve gotta get through me first.”

Blackbeard pulled his cutlass and Hook shared a look with Turk who instinctually took a hold of the wheel, nodding to his Captain that he’d do his best to steer the ship. Hook jumped down from the quarterdeck, keeping his footing steady as the ship roiled and the rain pelted him sideways.

Eyeing his father carefully, Hook made his way slowly towards him with a determined stride. “We could end this if you let him go.”

“Neverland will fall, if that boy leaves this place.”

“You can’t know that for certain.”

“You think we’d go through all this if we didn’t know.”

“I think you’d do anything to turn a purse of gold.” Hook scowled and their swords came up, clashing together; a sharp metal against metal spark in a sea of growling waves.

“MOM!” Henry screamed and Hook looked up to see Triton bring a bolt down upon her, but Regina came back at him with a burst of burning magic. Bright purple light swirled between her hands before she threw another bolt at him again. Hook’s heart lurched at the sight; their massive titanous bodies spinning the sea into a swirling whirlpool. His ship pitched and both he and Blackbeard lost their footing for a moment. He reached out, clinging to the rope ladder and pulling himself up towards the mast.

Blackbeard followed close on his heels, all the way up to the crossbeam. Hook dashed out across it, surefooted and quick. He spun around on the edge of the beam, holding his sword on his father with a steady hand.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Neverland’s magic is failing, we need something and their magic is that something.”

Hook rolled his eyes, fighting off his father’s attack with the sharp clack of metal on metal. “Look at what that magic is doing,” Hook gestured wide to the storm around them, the swirling seas, the pelting rain and the dark clouds overhead. “This is what happens when you try and use that magic for an ill purpose.”

“We’re trying to save this world.”

“You’re trying to steal a boy from his mother!” Hook shouted back, his eyes mad with anger, the blue in their depths flashing ferociously. 

“His belief, his strength, will save this world.”

“And her grief will destroy it!” Hook screamed.

Blackbeard made another swing, Hook countered it and the force of the blow had Blackbeard struggling to maintain his footing. Hook grabbed his sleeve, heaving him upright before the sudden swing of his father’s cutlass had him staggering back.

Hook stumbled to the end of the beam, his toes practically tipping off the edge as Blackbeard smacked his sword from his hand. The world around them was suddenly silent, even though the storm raged on. Hook stood at the tip of his father’s sword, his feet precariously perched on the end of the beam as he looked into his father’s eyes.

“None of this will bring her back.” He spoke softly and he could see Blackbeard’s hand shake ever so slightly. “I can’t bring her back; nothing I can do or say will fix it, but don’t make Regina and Henry suffer for what I did.”

Blackbeard’s eyes softened, Regina’s words from earlier burning at the back of his mind. Slowly he started to lower his sword with the very slightest nod of his head. The rain drenched them right down to their bones; Blackbeard’s hair was plastered to the side of his face and his long, plaited beard was matted from the wind. His eyes turned down to the sea as his sword fell to his side; his shoulders sagging in defeat. “It was never your fault,” Slowly, he gathered the courage to meet Killian’s eye. “She did what she did because she loved you and because she loved me.”

Killian’s eyes widened but before he could respond, Blackbeard screamed out as a small, powerful force collected Killian and they both went tumbling from the mast. He could hear the crow as Killian hit the water, the shadow of his attacker flying up into the air with a maniacal laugh.

“He was a pest.” The voice giggled, flitting this way and that as if he were dodging the rain.

“He was my son.” Blackbeard growled, grabbing the double-barrel flintlock from his belt, swirling it around his finger, before pulling the trigger on the boy. Peter fell to the sea, his demonic laughter dying out the closer he got to the ocean before the splash finally silenced him. “We’ll fix this world my way now.” He muttered, clenching his teeth.

To Be Continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter up very soon.


	8. Chapter 8

“Henry, you alright?”

“Hook!” Henry beamed as the pirate crawled up onto the broken surface of Henry’s life-raft. He slashed at the ropes with his hook, grinning when the boy fell from his ropes and wrapped his arms around his waist.

“We have to help my mom!” Henry declared, letting go and turning his eyes up to the sky.

Regina and Triton were at a standstill, neither gaining the upper hand. It was the first time Hook had really gotten a chance to look at her. Grown to the size of a titan, Regina had shape-shifted to that of a giant octopus, with her eight long tentacles all working at gaining ground. She wrapped one around the end of Triton’s trident whilst she swirled a bright ball of magic in her hands.

The King brought lightening down from the sky, using Regina’s storm to his advantage. She ducked out of the way of the bolt, using her body to throw him off as she aimed the magic right at his chest.

It hit him dead centre, throwing him back and as he went over, Regina threw out her tentacles to wrap around his throat and his wrists; she knocked his trident from his hand and it fell into the water, disappearing from sight.

The wake that formed with their movements, tossed the small raft of broken deck roughly around, knocking them from side to side. But with each hit, a bright shimmer of purple magic rippled around them, keeping the pair safe from falling overboard.

“I think your mom’s doing okay,” Hook smiled down at Henry, wrapping his arm around the boy’s shoulders as they both grinned up at her.

“We’ll make a deal, Triton,” Regina’s deep, rumbling voice surrounded them. “I will let you live, but you will be bound to the sea. You will have no part in this world, no say in it’s fate. You will live below the water with only your daughters for company.”

Blackbeard watched from the deck of the Jolly Roger, looking over the side to his son clinging to Henry before looking up at the powerful woman with their fate in her hands.

“Perhaps you will learn to appreciate how precious your children are and you’ll understand, what a stupid mistake it was to threaten mine.”

Regina twirled magic in the palm of her hand, still holding the merman firm with her tentacles as she forced him to return to his normal size. Hook, Henry and Blackbeard watched on as Regina too, started to shrink. Smaller and smaller she became until she was a small, rain-drenched woman in a black trench-coat, holding the lord of the sea’s throat with her bare hand.

She stood unsteady on a broken piece of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, swirling a curse around the merman who had given up protesting before suddenly, he fell through the surface of the water and the storm came to an abrupt end.

There was silence for a time, a seagull crowed overhead and everyone froze, waiting for Peter to shoot up out of the sea; but nothing changed. A cool breeze moved over them, Regina’s wet tendrils of hair stuck to her cheeks and refused to budge in the wind.

Henry and Hook watched on baited breath as she turned, so very slowly, to face them. When a broad smile broke out on her face, they each let out a long breath in relief, clinging to each other with one arm and punching the air with the other.

They hooped and hollered and Regina laughed, pretending to curtsy with the tails of her sodden coat.

Blackbeard watched them from the deck of the Jolly Roger with his heart in his throat. They were all standing on the broken pieces of his beloved ship, there was miles around them with nothing but ocean and his son was the happiest he’d ever seen him. 

“Pick them up, Turk.” He turned to the pirate who’d been cowering behind the wheel of the ship. The man peeked over with a sheepish smile before spinning the wheel to bring the Jolly Roger around. 

Henry and Hook were closer, staggering onto the ship with excitement and Henry dashed to the side, waving for his mother. She saved them a trip when she disappeared in a puff of magic, reappearing at Henry’s side.

The boy wrapped his arms around her in an instant, clinging to her coat so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“That was so awesome, mom.”

“Thank you, Henry.” She kissed the top of his head, patting down his hair with a gentle hand. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Hook untied me,” Henry gestured over his shoulder to where the three pirates stood, watching them. Turk remained behind the wheel and father and son were standing an arms length apart. But no longer was that arm extended on the end of a cutlass.

“Thank you,” Regina breathed, her eyes set on Hook’s.

“Any time, love.”

Regina stepped out of Henry’s arms, moving slowly across the deck as Hook took a step towards her. “I promise you, love, you don’t even have to ask.” He almost whispered the words as she stepped up to him, smiling widely, their chests just barely touching.

“I probably won’t ask,” She smirked and Hook chuckled.

“That works out then.” 

In the next breath, her arms were around his neck so tight he stumbled back, wrapping his arms with equal strength around her waist. She pressed her lips to his with such conviction that he lost all breath, his lips bruising with the pressure against his teeth. She pulled herself up closer, arms tightening around his neck as they kissed until their air ran out.

They could hear a faint laugh behind them and Regina laughed against Hook’s mouth, kissing him again chastely before dropping back down on level feet.

“Perhaps we should head ashore.” Blackbeard offered and they all looked at him, Hook and Regina’s cheeks only slightly flushed with either their fervor or a touch of embarrassment. 

“Good idea.” Hook conceded, unwilling to let go of Regina’s hand as she pulled Henry back into her side, kissing the top of his head again and holding on tightly as though he’d disappear if she let him go.

“We’ll have to find the others.” Hook spoke gently into Regina’s side. “They’ll want to know that the boy’s okay.”

“It’s okay,” Regina smiled. Raising herself on her tiptoes to kiss the corner of his mouth. “I’m okay.”

“Good.” He grinned.

“Pop,” Blackbeard’s heart jumped into his throat at the name. “You want to do the honors?” Killian gestured to the wheel with his hook, tipping his head to Turk, silently telling him to move aside. Hook wasn’t leaving Regina or Henry now that he had them, clinging to Regina’s hand as she hugged her son.

“Okay,” Blackbeard breathed, nodding his head slowly. It wouldn’t have looked like much to anyone else, but for a pirate to relinquish control of his ship was a surefire way to prove his trust. Hook was offering his father an olive branch and Blackbeard would have been a fool not to take it.

**

“Do you need some help?” Mulan asked gently, stepping into the room as Neal was trying to stand up from the bed.

“No,” He winced. “I think I’m good.” He smiled up at her, seeing her disbelief. “I’m just a bit stiff. I’ve been lying down too long and I really want to get above ground for a bit.”

“Well,” Mulan smirked. “It’s a perfect day for it. We’ve got a bit of a surprise for you.” Aurora’s head poked through the curtain that had been working as a makeshift door for his room whilst he healed. Both women were smiling conspiratorially and Neal narrowed his eyes in mirthful distrust.

“What are you two up to?”

“Nothing,” Aurora grinned. She had a far worse poker face than Mulan did, but Neal decided to humor them with a reluctant roll of his eyes and a small smile he couldn’t force down; because these women had cared for him and nursed him back to health when they could have as easily left him for dead on the shore.

“Come on,” Mulan grabbed his arm and aided him along. It was the clearest sign to anyone that had come to know her at all, that Mulan was getting impatient. An outside observer would see a woman helping the damaged man struggle on his feet, but Neal knew in Mulan’s eyes, he was taking far too long to move.

It brought a smile to his face.

They stepped out into the light of the clearing in which the large tree stood. For the first time, he was seeing what had been his home, from the outside. It was a massive tree, it’s tall roots stretching across the forest floor. It was strangled in vines that they’d manage to use to their advantage. Neal could see his own jacket and some of Philip’s shirts hanging across a vine. They had a small fire pit in the centre of the clearing with stumps around it for stools and a rickety table off to the side with a small vase of wildflowers. No doubt Aurora’s doing.

What caught Neal off-guard was the group seated around the fire. The sun had already started to set, covering the clearing in half-bright light with sunbeams and strips of chilling air. There were five bodies around the fire, including Philip who stood up to greet him with a broad grin. 

But his eyes weren’t on Philip.

The world had silenced to nothing, light had dimmed to a single source, shining on the long stream of golden hair. He saw her head turn, she looked up at Philip and then suddenly, her eyes were on his, wide and blue and happy.

“Emma?” He questioned, unsure if in the haze of his injuries, he was imagining that she’d come. “You’re real?”

Uncharacteristically, she dashed for him, colliding with his chest with a force that knocked the wind out of him, but he laughed regardless. His good arm went around her back as she clung to his neck.

“I thought you were dead.” She breathed into him and he pressed his eyes closed, glad of the moisture and heat at his neck because it meant she was real and there and not a figment of his imagination.

“So this isn’t a rescue then?” He joked and Emma stepped back, looking into his eyes. She pressed her palm to the side of his face.

“If I’d known,” She started but he halted her with a finger to her lips.

“I know.” He grinned. “I’m just glad you’re here.” He brushed her hair from her eyes, smiling down at her. “I never thought I’d get to show you this place.”

“I don’t know if that’s such a bad thing.”

“Oh,” Neal smirked. “Neverland is a creepy place, but it has it’s beauty. I spent a lot of time here, a long time ago.”

He looked over Emma’s head to see his father standing a few feet away, just alongside hers. He smiled, nodding his head to the man. “Papa,” He greeted and Rumple inclined his head with relief and dare he think it, pride. “It’s good to see you, but,”

Neal’s grin faltered for a moment as he looked back to Emma, his brow creasing in a frown. “Why are you here?”

Emma looked down to the ground for a moment before taking a deep breath. “Henry.” She sighed. “He’s missing. Tamara and Greg kidnapped him and brought him to this world, Neal, he’s lost and he’s alone and I’ve failed him.”

Neal’s eyes widened in fear and he opened his mouth to respond, but a voice from the shadows startled the group. “Not entirely,” Regina’s smiling face appeared from the trees. She turned, throwing her head over her shoulder as Henry’s shrieks of laughter peeled out from the forest. The image of a smiling, laughing Regina was enough to startle them all, but close at her heels, Henry happily rode on Hook’s shoulders. 

When he saw the rest of his family, his eyes lit up with excitement, sparkling in the dimming light as his bright smile warmed them all.

“Safe and sound, as requested.” Hook tipped his fingers to his forehead with a flourish before he let the boy down to the ground. Within seconds, Henry had his arms around Emma’s waist, knocking the wind from her. Her back collided with Neal’s chest and he groaned with discomfort, but assured her with a wave of his hand and a faint smile, that he was fine.

“You should have seen it!” Henry beamed, letting go of Emma once she’d kissed the top of his head. “Mom was amazing!” He bounced around the clearing, waving his arms enthusiastically.

“Henry, come now,” Regina attempted to calm him.

“No, Mom, it was amazing.” He grinned and turned back to his grandparents. “Mom made the storm and King Triton was there and he was huge, so Mom made herself huge too, but she wasn’t just Mom, she was like the Kraken with long tentacles and crazy hair,” Henry wandered around the clearing, trying to impersonate Regina with tentacles but he really ended up looking like a Egyptian mummy with the way he was walking. “She saved me and Killian and she defeated Triton. Blackbeard,” He pointed and for the first time, the rest of them noticed the menacing pirate standing just behind his son’s right shoulder, looking uncharacteristically sheepish. “he took out Peter Pan, it was amazing!”

Henry collapsed on one of the stumps near the fire, grinning but exhausted from the ordeal as well as the retelling. 

“That was you,” Neal looked up at Regina in wonder. “All those years ago, the creature that ravaged the seas of Neverland, stealing the voices of the mermaids, that was you?” He pointed at her, his eyes alight with mirth.

“I think it’s time for you to rest, Henry.” Regina smiled gently, narrowing her eyes when he showed signs of protesting. She only partly ignored Neal’s questions; choosing instead to shrug her shoulders and pull Henry in front of her with his back to her and her arm across his chest.

Hook stepped up beside her with a hand to her lower back, speaking gently in her ear but loud enough for the others to hear, effectively cutting off any more questions Neal may have had. “We’re not far from Tortuga, love, we could make it to the tavern tonight.” She turned, meeting his eyes. “It’d make for a more restful night for all of us.”

Regina looked out to the group who all nodded their ascent. “A real bed certainly sounds nice.” David commented and Snow agreed with a nod of her head.

“Glad to see you’re safe, Henry.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead to which Henry just smiled contentedly.

**

With the sun finally gone for the night, the only light in the room was that of a single candle, flickering and dancing shadows across the wall. He could barely make out their faces from where he sat on a rickety old chair in the corner of the bay window; he had his heavy boots propped up on the sill and his arms crossed over his chest, intently alternating between the dim moonlit alleyway outside and watching her peaceful face.

She had one arm tucked under the pillow, supporting her head. Her rich, dark hair was spread out, a sharp contrast to the light sheets; and she had one arm wrapped securely around her son. Henry’s head was rested beneath her chin, snuggled closely into her chest. He’d protested sharing a room with anyone, declaring how much older he had grown due to his adventure; he’d only agreed to share the bed with his mother under sufferance and the small pleading look Regina had passed Hook’s way, begging him to lie.

Henry was too much of a hero to force his mother to be alone with a pirate, and too grown up to insist on his own room when there were few to spare.

Hook watched them, his face spreading into a smile as the moonlight slowly started to fill the room.

“There’s room, you know.” A small voice interrupted his reverie; he hadn’t realised she was awake.

“I’m alright, love.”

“Surely you’re exhausted, you should get some rest.”

Hook looked down at the boy resting peacefully in his mother’s arms, snuggled in tightly as if he were still a tiny babe and he sighed. He chuckled to himself, twisting the tip of his hook underneath his fingernail with a tip of his head in their direction. “I’m not a part of that, love.”

Regina blinked, carefully extricating herself from Henry’s sleeping form without waking him, before she slowly crawled out of the bed and pulled a tattered woolen blanket around her shoulders. Hook’s eyes dropped and his lips quirked at the sight of her bare legs, having taken to sleeping in his long, flowing shirt as if it were her own. He liked the thought and he certainly liked the look.

He watched her intently as she moved closer, stepping up to him and wrapping her arm around his shoulders. His arm went around her waist, bunching the loose fabric of the shirt and blanket tightly against her form as he pressed his eyes closed, savouring the feel of her fingernails against his scalp.

“You can be a part of it,” She said breathlessly and he could feel her eyes looking down at the top of his head. “If you want to be.”

“I tried to be,” Hook’s voice was soft, kept low so they wouldn’t wake Henry, but also because he wasn’t sure he had the strength to admit out loud, what he truly wanted; what he’d wanted for so long. “With Bae,” He gripped her waist tighter, clinging to her and pressing the side of his face to her stomach. “I wanted to be a father to him.”

“Who knows,” She ran her fingers through his hair with a smile. “He’s only in the next room, maybe now is your chance to prove it to him.”

Hook shook his head sadly. “He’s a grown man,” He sighed. “And he has his father back, he has no need for me.”

“Maybe not as his father, but there’s no reason for you not to be there for him. To care for him, as you tried to so long ago.”

“I just wanted a family,” Hook buried his face in the fabric of her shirt and Regina pulled her other hand up to join the one that was already drawing gentle patterns against his scalp. “I wanted to feel that connection with someone.”

“I’ve wanted that too, for a very long time.” Regina choked out and Hook looked up at her.

“But you have Henry.”

“I do,” She smirked, brushing her fingers from his temple to his jaw, smiling down at him. “but Henry also has Emma and David and Snow, he won’t need me forever.”

“What will you do?” Hook questioned, bunching up the light linen shirt until he held clumps of it in his hand and was able to press a gentle kiss to her taut stomach, just above the line of her knickers.

“I don’t know,” She grinned, shivering at the touch. “I haven’t thought about it.” That was a lie; both of them knew it and Hook found himself smiling up at her, grinning with the knowledge of it. As much as he knew she loved her son, he knew she hadn’t yet had her fill of being a mother; there was a part of her that still felt empty, even with so much of Henry in her heart.

“I’m not going anywhere, darling.” He spoke firmly; his voice soft.

“I don’t know that.”

“I am a man of my word and I don’t want to waste this.” He placed another kiss to her hip, running the fingertips of his good hand along the inside of her thigh, causing her to shudder and suck her bottom lip into her mouth before she remembered where they were.

“Killian!” She hissed, shoving his hand away with a laugh, looking up to the sleeping boy in the bed across the room. Henry hadn’t so much as flinched but Hook could feel the tension running through her body as she shivered against his side.

Hook tugged on her, pulling her closer into him until she fell, smothering a laugh in her hand as she landed in his lap. Blocked from the bed by his body, Hook grinned against her mouth as he pressed a kiss to her lips, letting his deft fingers draw invisible patterns on the inside of her thigh, dipping beneath the hem of her knickers.

“We can’t.” Regina whispered; breathless, with her forehead pressed to his as she tried to hold his hand still at his wrist.

“Just because you’re incapable of being silent.” He jibed and Regina slapped his arm, earning a hearty chuckle. He pulled his hand away reluctantly, resting it against the outside of her thigh, consoling himself with running his fingertips along the lace hem of her knickers.

“Will you stay?” Regina said quietly after a moment, having found herself a comfortable position in his lap with her head rested against his chest.

“I’ve got no where I’d rather be right now, love.” He brushed her hair from her eyes, pressing a kiss to her brow.

“No,” She fiddled with the heavy silver chain around his neck, chewing on her lip for a moment. “I mean when we go back.”

They were silent for a time, listening to the sound of the ocean just down the end of the lane and the creaking floorboards of the strange old buildings, twisting and expanding under the weight of their occupants.

“I won’t lie to you, darling.” He looked down to meet her eye as she tilted her head up. “I am a pirate and I’ll always be drawn to the sea, I can’t help that.” Slowly, his lips spread into a smile and Regina’s heart stilled. “But I love you.” He ran his fingers through her hair, marveling at the feel of it. “So, if you keep a light burning, I’ll always, always come back to you.”

“Even when we’re old and grey and the journey becomes too much?” She questioned, her voice so soft and scared he wanted to hold her tighter and show her just how much he loved her. 

“Then I know which I will choose.” 

As if his words weren’t enough; and Hook knew that Regina had a difficult time believing the things that people said, he cupped the back of her head with his strong hand and pressed his lips firmly to hers. 

Regina could feel her heart thumping in her chest, threatening to burst out through her throat if she couldn’t get close enough to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling her knees up tight to his side and feeling the pressure of his lips, crushing her own.

“You know that curse you placed on yourself,” Killian started, pressing kisses to the corner of her mouth as she breathed heavily, brushing her cheeks against his.

“Yes,” She breathed. And of all the curses she’d had placed upon her, she knew exactly which one he meant. As they held each other, so closely entwined that they were one person in the dim moonlight of Neverland, there could be no other curse that he was referring to.

“Lift it.” He kissed her eyebrow and Regina pressed her eyes closed. “Lift it and I’ll never let you be alone again.”

Regina could feel her own cheeks pinking. She ran her fingers under his jaw, feeling the stubble of days without shaving. Her fingers traveled up to his temple, tapping a staccato into his hairline as she watched her own movements.

“You would want that?” She sighed, feeling his arms tighten around her so much that the cool metal of his hook chilled her through her shirt. His lips against her temple pulled into a broad smile and she could feel his teeth against her brow.

“With you,” He breathed. “I want everything.”

Regina grinned up at him, reaching across his body for his hook he had rested against the armrest. “Well,” She curled her fingers around the cool metal, pulling it into her lap with a smirk. Hook tried to pull it away, frightened he might hurt her, but Regina’s firm hold and sure eyes calmed him. “If you’re going to be holding children,” She smirked. “Small ones with soft, unmarred, perfect skin,” She lifted the hook up to her lips and kissed the side of it as she turned to look into his eyes. “We’ll have to do something about this.”

“What did you have in mind?” He didn’t turn his eyes from her face even though her focus fell back on his hook.

“A small trick I learned when I was quite young.” She grinned and out of the corner of his eye, Hook could see a small burst of light. Purple streams of smoke and light surrounded her hand and his hook. His heart leapt into his throat for a moment and all but stopped when suddenly, the smoke and magic was gone, leaving their palms pressed firmly together in the space before them.

“Regina,” He breathed her name out reverently. She giggled at the wiggling of his fingers against hers. He moved quickly to cup of her face, both strong hands on either side of her broad, happy smile. “You are magnificent.”

Regina shrugged, laughing into his mouth as he kissed her with fervour. 

“I love you,” He smiled against her lips. “So much.”

“Good,” She laughed, falling back against his chest and savouring the feel of both his broad hands, stretching across her back, feeling their way underneath her shirt. She had a mind to stop him, to remind him Henry was sleeping just behind them, but she couldn’t deny him the excitement, the pure rapture of feeling her skin with his new hand. “Then make me happy.”

“For all the days of my life.”

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> To Be Continued.


End file.
